cooking to their folks, and strangers as well, for they felt a commendable pride in what they had accomplished.

Others were abroad doing some of the many things that had been handed over into their charge. A couple waited at the railroad station for the next incoming train, so as to meet strangers, and either direct them to some place where they could put up while staying in town, or escort them straight to the gates of the County Fair.

Still another lot of the scouts put in their time roaming about the grounds, not only taking in the sights with which they soon became familiar, but also being constantly on the watch for chances to make themselves useful.

This they could do in a thousand ways, if they felt so disposed. Children that had strayed away from their elders in the crowd; tired mothers who did not know where to warm the baby’s milk, and were grateful for a little aid; bewildered country people who sought information concerning the best way to leave their rigs so that they would be perfectly safe while they did the sights—yes, there was really no limit to the ways a wide-awake scout, anxious to do his full duty, could extend that helping hand—a part of his profession.

Hugh was feeling pretty well satisfied with the way things had started out. He knew there might be a few little matters needing alteration, but as a whole the camp was in apple-pie order. They need not feel ashamed to have it examined by any fair-minded critic.

A number of gentlemen had already manifested a decided interest. They showered compliments on the tidy manner in which the boys had arranged things.

“I never saw a camp so well ordered,” one man had remarked, “and all my life I’ve been going into the woods every summer and fall, fishing and shooting. After this I must take my guide to task and have things changed. If boys can show such smartness, it’s a burning shame that a man is content to keep camp, with his duffle littered about so that nothing is in place.”

Those sort of things made Hugh feel as though it paid every time to be thorough in all he did, without appearing to be what boys call a “crank.” One can keep his possessions in decent order without making it such a hobby that he becomes a bore to all his comrades.

The assistant scout master laughed when Billy Worth made that remark about the anxiety of Arthur Cameron to have his first patient.

“Oh! you’re stretching things again, Billy, I’m afraid,” he said, shaking his finger at the other. “Arthur isn’t so anxious as all that to see anyone suffering. He only wants to know that everything is all right; just as your mother would go over the house again and again when expecting company. While we’re ready to take care of any emergency case that comes along, I’m sure all of us would be just as well satisfied if there didn’t happen a solitary accident while the Fair lasted.”

“That never occurred yet, as far as I know,” declared Billy; “and there have been some years when as many as a dozen people got hurt. One man last season had a nasty fall with a race horse on top of him, and they took him to the hospital with both legs broken. I could string off half a dozen cases that I plainly remember.”

The coming of a party of visitors, curious to see what the scouts were doing at the two tents, broke up the conversation. For quite some time all of them were busily engaged showing them facts connected with camp life; explaining how they made an excellent cooking fire by using stones for a foundation; proving that the ancient hunter’s way of baking a fowl by shutting it up over night in a hole in the ground previously made very hot was the original “fireless cooker,” and many other interesting things.

All the time each scout was doing everything he could to prove what a great benefit the organization to which he belonged had turned out to be for the boys of America. They made many converts among the men, and also a few among the women, who confessed that up to this time they had been laboring under a false conception as to what the scout movement stood for.

“I can plainly see,” said Arthur to the scout master, after some of these greatly interested people had passed on, shaking hands heartily with the boys as they thanked them for their courtesy, “that there’ll be another patrol of the Oakvale Troop between now and Christmas.”

“It begins to look as if we would set a few hundred people right about the meaning of scoutcraft and ambitions,” admitted Hugh; “and for that, if nothing more, I think this Fair camp is going to be one of the best advertisements we could ever have run across.”

“But while they seem to understand all about the other things we’ve shown them,” Arthur said, looking rather amused, “I can see that they take little stock in the usefulness of scouts in case of accidents. They always look at each other when I’m modestly telling what we hope to do for anyone that needs help, and the way they nod shows that they accept it with a grain of salt.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, also smiling, as if to show that it did not worry him, “I noticed the same. Now, I might have told those unbelievers a few things we’ve done, particularly about that field hospital last summer, and when we helped the Red Cross surgeon and nurses among the injured strikers; but I held my tongue. It would seem too much like blowing our own horn to please me.”

“One thing sure,” interrupted Ned Twyford, who had come up in time to hear the burden of their little conversation. “If they run across any of the Oakvale folks, and get to sneering at the idea of boys doing temporary surgical work, they’re going to hear a few plain facts that will make them sit up and take notice, believe me.”

Another batch of visitors, on their way to see the prize cattle of other fairs that were on exhibition in the sheds not far away, stopped to take a look around. Somehow the sight of those tents seemed to appeal to nearly every man; and he wanted to pick up a few pointers, if his knowledge concerning scout doings was hazy.

Now and then they found parties who believed with all their heart and soul in the movement, because they had seen the wonderful change it made in certain boys—possibly of their own family circle. It was certainly a great pleasure for Hugh and his comrades to chat with these friends, and give them further information in connection with a few things they had enjoyed or endured in the past.

The afternoon was almost half over, and at three o’clock the racing would begin; after which the most exciting event of the day, the aëroplane exhibition, was to be witnessed.

Hugh and Arthur stood by the camp, as their duties lay in that quarter. Others of the boys came and went as the whim seized them, or they thought of some way in which they could make themselves particularly useful.

Several crying children had already been restored to their almost distracted parents or guardians, since there was a squad of scouts detailed for this purpose. Two unruly horses had been taken in hand before they got fairly started at running away, when the passing band suddenly began to play some lively air. Strangers without number had been supplied with information, or taken from one part of the grounds to another. It would really be difficult to enumerate one-quarter of the methods by which the scouts filled in their time. They were almost constantly on the move, flitting here and there, stopping to answer questions, and being looked upon as real necessities, so that the sight of a khaki uniform was presently hailed as a sure means for dissipating doubt and perplexity.