'Oh, uncle,' cried out Dick, 'can't we begin scouting at once? It's the jolliest thing I ever heard of, and all my chums think the same. We'd like to make up a patrol at once. And you said you'd lend us a hand, didn't you?' 'I did, Dick,' said his uncle, laying aside his paper. 'When is your next half-holiday?' 'We get Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays half-holidays in the week,' said Dick. 'All right,' said his uncle. 'I'll give you Thursday afternoons till you're on your own legs. Bring your men up here on Thursday afternoon at three.' At the time named eight boys turned up, each with an eager look on his face, and a copy of the first part of 'Scouting for Boys,' which he had thumbed from end to end. 'Well, you're not scouts yet,' said Mr. Elliott to them, 'for you have to pass the tests, you know.' 'We've been at work on them already, uncle,' replied Dick. 'We can most of us do the first test--the knot-tying--and the last three are easy enough.' 'Very good,' said Mr. Elliott. 'Then I'll try you here on Tests 1, 4, and 6--the knots, the laws and signs of scouts, and the Union Jack test.' He took them in turn, and put everyone through his facings, and all came through in good shape. 'Now for Test 2,' said Mr. Elliott--'to "track a deer's spoor, or describe a shop window." Which will you have?' 'The spoor! the spoor!' cried the boys. 'Then we'll go on to the heath,' said he. Twenty minutes' walk brought them clear of the houses, and the road ran on through a great heath which stretched for several miles and was quite unenclosed. The party struck into a side-path, and soon gained a quiet spot. Here Mr. Elliott produced a pair of tracking-irons, which the boys examined with the most eager interest, and prepared to test the band one after another. It was a capital place for the purpose, for clumps of gorse and holly were thickly scattered over the heath, affording excellent cover, and through these clumps the trainer would lay a track which each boy must follow for a quarter of a mile, and make the journey within fifteen minutes. Five boys were successful, among these being Arthur Graydon and Dick Elliott. Three boys failed, not because their eyesight was poorer than that of the rest, but simply because they were unobservant, and did not pick up the trail quickly at one or two points where Mr. Elliott laid little traps for them, for he did not believe in making the test too easy. 'Well,' said Dick's uncle, 'five of you rank as second-class scouts now, and can make a beginning with a patrol; the other three will qualify next time, I expect.' And he took the failures in hand and showed them where they had slipped up in tracking his spoor. Mixed with instruction, he told them stories of the wonderful tracking he had seen performed in South Africa by both white men and natives, and the afternoon passed all too quickly for the deeply interested boys.