Tom thought that perhaps these were a rush order of programs for the patriotic rally, and he wondered if they might possibly contain his name--printed in type. But he thrust the thought away from him and, clutching his five dollars in his pocket, he turned down the street and started along the good scout trail. CHAPTER VIII AN ACCIDENT The latter part of the afternoon found Tom many miles from Bridgeboro, and the trail which had passed through such sordid and pride-racking surroundings back in his home town, now led up through a quiet woodland, where there was no sound but the singing of the birds and an occasional rustle or breaking of a twig as some startled wild creature hurried to shelter. Through the intertwined foliage overhead Tom could catch little glints of the blue sky, and once, when he climbed a tree to get his bearings, he could see, far in the distance, the lake and the clearing of Temple Camp, and could even distinguish the flagpole. But no flag flew from it, for the season had not yet begun; Jeb Rushmore was on a visit to his former "pals" in the West, and the camp was closed tight. Down there was where Tom had won the Gold Cross. He would have liked to see a flag waving, for Bridgeboro, with all its patriotic fervor and bustle, seemed very far away now, and though he was in a country which he loved and which meant much to him, he would have been glad of some tangible reminder that he was, as he had told himself, _with the Colors_. Tom had left the train at Catskill Landing and reached the hill by a circuitous, unfrequented route, hoping to reach, before dark, the clearer path which he himself had made and blazed from the vicinity of Temple Camp to the little hunting shack upon the hill's summit. This, he felt sure, was the path Roscoe would follow. It was almost dark when, having picked his way through a very jungle where there was no more sign of path than there is in the sky, he emerged upon the familiar trail at a point about a mile below the shack. He was breathless from his tussle with the tangled underbrush, his old clothes had some fresh tears, and his hands were cut and bleeding. For three solid hours he had worked his way up through the tangled forest, and now, as he reached the little trail which was not without its own obstacles, it seemed almost like a paved thoroughfare by contrast. "Thank goodness!" he breathed. "It's good _he_ didn't have to go that way--I--could see _his_ finish!" He was the scout now, the typical scout--determined, resourceful; and his tattered khaki jacket, his slouched hat, his rolled-up sleeves, and the belt axe which he carried in his hand, bespoke the rugged power and strong will of this young fellow who had trembled when Miss Margaret Ellison spoke pleasantly to him. He sat down on a rock and poured some antiseptic over the scratches on his hands and arms. "I can fight the woods, all right," he muttered, "even if they won't let me go off and fight the Germans."