“Ye’re one of them scaouts, hey?” he said. “Yer ain’t thinkin’ to lead any elephants home with that thar rope naow, be yer?” I said, “No, I’m going to use the rope to lasso mosquitoes as long as you haven’t got any mosquito dope.” He said, “Wall naow, ye’re quite a comic be’nt yer?” I told him I was a little cut up and my mother and father couldn’t do anything with me. “’N what else can I do fer yer?” he said, laughing all the while. “Them tracks wuz caow tracks, youngster, so daon’t yer be sceered of ’em.” I told him I wasn’t scared of any tracks, not even a railroad track and that I’d buy the village for seventy-five cents, if he’d send it C. O. D. He just stood there laughing. Anyway, it makes me mad when grown up people jolly scouts about tracking and signaling and all that, just as if it was only play. Because what do _they_ know about tracks? Who ever heard of a cow with feet like a cat? _Good night!_ And, besides, often it turns out that scouts are right. You wait and see. * * * * * Now the things I bought I had in a kind of a flat bundle and I hung it over my back, because I like to have my hands free. What’s the use of wasting your hands? You’ll never find anything out with your back; all your back is good for, is bundles. I didn’t have any adventures on the way back till I got to that spring house in the woods. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even notice the tracks again. That’s how much I was afraid of them. When I got to the spring house, I went in for a drink of water, and believe _me_, it was good. I squeezed in, instead of opening the door wide, because it scraped so hard on the ground that it was easier to do that than to open it; and I did the same coming out. I was just going to start along the path again, when I got a good idea. That’s just the way you get them, sudden like. I decided to shinny up a tree that was there and see if I couldn’t squint our camp over in the west, because if I could once see it, maybe I’d be able to get to it by a shorter way than by the path. I did that because it was getting late.