"So they are!" replied the scout quickly. "That's just what we're taught: that every bird and animal, as well as everything which is done by men, leaves its 'sign!' We must try to read that 'sign' and store up in our minds what we learn, as a squirrel stores his nuts for winter, so that often we may find out things of importance to ourselves or others. And I'll tell you it makes life a jolly lot more interesting than when one goes about 'lak wit' eye shut'! as Toiney says. I've never had such good times as since I've been a scout:-- Then hurrah for the woods, hurrah for the fields, Hurrah for the life that's free, With a heart and mind both clean and kind, The Scout's is the life for me! And we'll shout, shout, shout, For the Scout, Scout, Scout, For the Scouts of the U.S.A.!" The speaker exploded suddenly in a burst of song, throwing his broad hat into the air with a yell on the refrain that woke the echoes of the log shanty, while the breezy orchestra in the tree-tops, like noisy reed instruments, came in on the last line:-- "For the Scouts of the U.S.A.!" Colin and Coombsie were enthusiastically shouting it too. "Say! Col, that fellow suits me all right," whispered Marcoo, nudging his chum and pointing toward the excited scout. "Me, too!" returned Colin. "Pshaw! he thinks he's It, but I think the opposite," murmured Leon truculently. "To what troop or patrol do you belong, Nix?" questioned his cousin. "Peewit Patrol, troop six, of Philadelphia! I was a tenderfoot for six months; now I'm a second-degree scout--with hope of becoming a first-class one soon. Want to see my badge?" pointing to his coat. "Each patrol is named after a bird or animal. We use the peewit's whistle for signaling to each other: Tewitt! Tewitt!" Again the woods rang with a fairly good imitation of the peewit's--or European lapwing's--whistling note. "Oh! I'd put a patent on that whistle if I were you," snapped Leon sarcastically: "I'm sure nothing like it was ever heard in these--or any other--woods! We'd better be moving on or the mosquitoes will eat us up," he added hastily. "There hasn't been any frost to get rid of them yet." But as the quartette of boys left the log-camp behind and, with the terrier in erratic attendance, plunged again into the thick woods, it by and by became apparent to each that, so far as a knowledge of their exact whereabouts went or an ability to locate any point of destination, they were approaching the truth of Toiney's words and wandering "lak wit' eye shut!" For a time they kept to a logging-road that branched off from the shanty, a mere grass-grown, root-obstructed pathway, over which, when that great white leveler, Winter, evened things up with his mantle of snow, the felled trees were drawn on a rough sled to some point where stood the movable sawmill.