The scouts did not look very happy over this, for they both hated any fuss. But when they got into the big kitchen they found it was all right. The miller's wife was not a fussy person at all, and they were at home with the old lady in a minute. The little girl was sitting beside the fire in a big chair. She looked very pale, but was quite herself again. ''Tis a new thing to her, you see,' explained the miller's wife. 'She's my son's child, and lives over to Baildon, forty mile away. I don't know as ever she'd seen the race a-runnin' afore--leastways, from the bridge.' 'It made my head swing,' put in the child. 'Ay, it turned her head all swimmy like,' said the miller. 'Well, it's a merciful providence there wor' brave hearts at hand to save ye. Now,' he went on to the scouts, 'I can see by yer knapsacks an' sticks as ye be on a sort o' journey through the land.' 'Yes, we're on a scouting tramp,' said Dick. 'Ah!' said the miller, and rubbed his ear. Dick saw he did not quite understand, and he entered on a short explanation of their movements. 'Walkin' from place to place, be ye?' said the old lady. 'Then ye must stay wi' us to-night, an' I'll see ye have a good bed.' A good bed! The scouts looked at each other in dismay. Perish the thought! They were not out to sleep in good beds. 'Haven't you a hay-loft?' asked Dick. 'Yes,' replied the miller. 'What of that?' Again Dick explained. The miller and his wife were rather puzzled at the idea of the boys preferring the hay-loft, but they were willing that the scouts should do as they pleased; and that night the two comrades rolled themselves in their blankets, and slept snugly side by side in a nest of soft sweet hay. The next morning they were up bright and early, intending to slip off before the people of the mill were astir; but they reckoned without the miller, who was up earlier still, and insisted that they should eat a good breakfast before they started. And when at last they struck the trail once more, they carried a huge packet of sandwiches the miller's wife had cut for them. CHAPTER XXXV A BROTHER SCOUT--THE TWO TRAMPS It was mid-morning before they got the knots out of their neckties, for they followed quiet ways on which few people were to be met. Then they approached a small town entered by a steep hill. At the foot of the hill an old man was struggling to get a hand-cart loaded with cabbages up the slope. The scouts called upon him to ease up; then Chippy took the shafts, and Dick pushed at the side, and they ran the heavy hand-cart up the hill to the door of the greengrocer, whose shop the old man supplied from his little market-garden. At the top of the hill, as they rested to get their wind, a cheery-looking gentleman drove by in a dog-cart. He smiled at sight of them and their task, saluted, and called out; 'Well done, boy scouts!' The comrades saluted him in return, and he drove off, waving his hand.