Outside of the guide there were just eight lads in the party; and from the fact that various parts of their attire suggested the well known khaki uniform which all Boy Scouts wear, the world around it was evident that these young fellows belonged to such an organization. This was the exact fact, since they had come from far-away Cranford in an Eastern State, and were known as the Silver Fox Patrol of Cranford Troop; there being another patrol known as the Eagles, mustered in during the late winter. Thad Brewster was the patrol leader; he was also a First Class Scout, and had qualified for the position of Assistant Scout Master, receiving his certificate from Headquarters many moons before. Second in charge came Allan Hollister, a Maine boy, who had had considerable actual experience in wood's life, and to whom the rest of the patrol naturally turned whenever a knotty problem faced them during an outing. The exceedingly fat and good-natured youth was Bumpus Hawtree, bugler of the troop, even though just now he was minus the instrument on which he was accustomed to sound the various calls, such as "reveille," "assembly," "taps," and so on, the most popular being the second, as it was usually associated with meals. Bumpus had been looked upon as the real tenderfoot scout, up to recently; but having become lost in the big timber recently, he had acquitted himself so splendidly, as recorded in the preceding volume, that his mates now regarded him as one who had been keeping his light under a bushel. Then there was Bob White, otherwise Robert White Quail, a Southern boy, warm of heart, a faithful friend, and upon whom the leader could always depend in emergencies; Step Hen Bingham, whose real name of course was Stephen, but upon appearing at school for the first time he had insisted that it was pronounced as though made up of two syllables; Davy Jones, an athletic lad; Giraffe, really Conrad, Stedman, but given the significant nick-name because of a habit he had of stretching an exceedingly long neck most outrageously; and last but far from least, a dudish looking boy who at home answered when they called him Edmund Maurice Travers Smith; but among his playmates he was known simply as "Smithy." These Boy Scouts had seen some pretty lively times during the past year or so, down in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where they visited the former home of Bob White, and found themselves mixed up with the moonshiners of that wild, inhospitable region; and later on up in Maine, where they had gone partly on business for Thad's adopted father and guardian, and to enjoy an outing, with a little hunting thrown in.