Gilbert soon discovered his mistake. When a trail has brought you to a spot it is best to trust that trail to take you back again. Beacons, artificial beacons, are fickle things. Gilbert had much to learn.

He had lost the trail and he soon found that he was following a phantom. One of the lights was no light at all, but a reflection in a puddle in the woods. The woods were still full of puddles; though the ground was firm it still bore these traces of its recent soaking. And the damage caused by the high wind was apparent on every hand, in fallen trees and broken limbs. There was a pungent odor to the drenched woods.

Gilbert picked his way around these impediments of wetness and dÉbris. The night was clear. There were a few stars but no moon. Doubtless, he thought, the reflection in the puddle was the reflection of a star. Presently he saw something black before him. In his maneuvers to keep to dry ground he had in fact already gone beyond it, and looked back at it, so to say.

Now he could see that the reflection in the puddle was derived from a light on the further side of the black mass. Other little intervening puddles were touched with a faint, shimmering brightness.

Gilbert approached the dark object and saw that it was a fallen tree. The wound in the earth caused by its torn-up roots formed a sort of cavern where the slenderer tentacles hung limp like tropical foliage. If there was a means of entrance to this dank little shelter it must be from the farther side. Even where Gilbert stood the atmosphere was redolent of the damp earth of this crazy little retreat. For retreat it certainly was, because there was a light in it. Gilbert could only see the reflection of the light but he knew whence that reflection was derived.

He approached a little closer and was sure he heard voices. He paused, then advanced a little closer still. Doubtless this freakish little shelter left by the storm was occupied by a couple of hoboes, perhaps thieves.

But Gilbert had played his card and lost. He had forsaken the trail for a light, and the light had not guided him to camp. He doubted if he could find his way to camp from here. You are to remember that Gilbert was a good scout, but a new one.

He approached a little closer, and now he could distinctly hear a voice. Not the voice of a hobo, surely, for it was carolling a blithe song to the listening heavens. Gilbert bent his ear to listen:

Oh, the life of a scout is free,
is free;
He's happy as happy can be,
can be.
He dresses so neat,
With no shoes on his feet;
The life of a scout is free!
The life of a scout is bold,
so bold;
His adventures have never been told,
been told.
His legs they are bare,
And he won't take a dare,
The life of a scout is bold!
The savage gorilla is mild,
is mild;
Compared to the boy scout so wild,
so wild.
He don't go to bed,
And he stands on his head,
The life of a scout is wild!

Gilbert stood petrified with astonishment. In all his excursions through the scout handbook he had never encountered any such formula for scouting as this. No scout hero in Boys' Life had ever consecrated himself to such a program.

There was a pause within, during which Gilbert crept a little closer. He hardly knew any of the boys in camp yet, and the strange voice meant nothing to him. He knew that no member of his troop was there.

"Want to hear another?" the singer asked.

"Shoot," was the laconic reply.

"This one was writ, wrot, wrote for the Camp-fire Girls around the blazing oil stove.

"If I had nine lives like an old tom cat,
I'd chuck eight of them away.
For the more the weight, the less the speed,
And scouts don't carry any more than they need;
And I'd keep just one for a rainy day.

"Good? Want to hear more? Second verse by special request. They're off:

"If I could turn like an old windmill,
I'd do good turns all day;
With noble deeds the day I'd fill.
But you see I'm not an old windmill.
And I ain't just built that way,
I ain't."

Gilbert decided that however unusual were these ballads of scouting, they did not emanate from thief or hobo; and he climbed resolutely over the log. Even the comparative mildness of the savage gorilla to this new kind of scout did not deter him.

The scout anthem continued.

"If I was a roaring old camp-fire,
You bet that I'd go out;
Oh, I'd go out and far and near,
For a camp-fire has the right idea;
And knows what it's about!"

Gilbert crept along the farther side of the log till he came to an opening among the tangled roots. It was a very small but cozy little cave that he found himself looking into. In a general way, it suggested a wicker basket or a cage, except that it was black and damp. Within was a little fire of twigs. Tending it was a young fellow of perhaps twenty years of age, wearing a plaid cap. He was stooping over the little fire. Nearby, in a sort of swing made by binding two hanging tentacles of root, sat the wandering minstrel, swinging his legs to keep his makeshift hammock in motion.

Gilbert Tyson contemplated him in speechless consternation. There he was, the ideal ragged vagabond, and he did not cease swinging even when he discovered the visitor.

"H'lo," he said; "gimme my hat, that's just what I wanted; glad to see you."

Dumbfounded, Gilbert tossed the hat over to him.

"I wouldn't sell that hat," said Hervey, putting it on, "not for a couple of cups of cup custard. Sit down. Here's the chorus.

"Then hurrah for the cat with its nine little lives,
And the good turn windmill, too.
And hurrah for the fire that likes to go out,
When the hour is late like a regular scout;
For that's what I like to do,
I do.
You bet your life I do!"