The errand performed and the boy scout having put in half an hour condescendingly amusing the farmer's two small children, while Blink exchanged compliments with his kind, master and dog started upon the return walk.
"Oh! it's early yet; don't you want to come a little way into the woods, doggie?" said Leon, doubling backward after they had taken a few steps. "We haven't had many runs together lately. Your nose has been out of joint; poor pup!" stooping to caress the terrier. "Toiney says we can't take you on our scout hikes, because you'd scare every 'littal wil' an-ni-mal' within a mile. You would, too; wouldn't you? But there's an outdoor scout meeting to-night to be held over in Sparrow Hollow, each fellow lighting his own camp-fire--using not more than two matches--and cooking his own supper. And you may come. Yes, I said you might come!" as the dog, gyrating like a feather, seized his coat-sleeve between strong white teeth in his eagerness not to be excluded from any more fun that might be afoot.
They were soon on the sere skirts of the woodland, prancing through leafy drifts.
"We can't go far," said Leon. "We must get back to the town and buy our half-pound of beefsteak that we're to cook without the use of any ordinary cooking-utensil, and so pass one of the tests for becoming a second-class scout. I'll divvy up with you, pup! But whew! isn't this just fine?... The woods in November can put it all over the September woods to my mind."
He added the last words to himself. There was something about the rugged strength of the stripped trees, with the stealing blue haze of evening softening their bareness, about the evergreen grandeur of pine and hemlock lording it over their robbed brethren, about the drab, parchment-like leaves clinging with eerie murmur to the oak-tree, and the ruddy twigs of bare berry-bushes, that appealed to the element of rugged daring in the boy himself.
He could not so soon break away from the woods as he had intended, though he only explored their outskirts.
Dusk was already falling when he found himself on the open uplands again, bound back toward the distant town.
"The scouts are to start for Sparrow Hollow at six o'clock: we must hustle, if we want to start with them," he said to the dog. "The only way we can make it is by taking a short cut across the marshes and wading through the river; that would be a quick way of reaching the town and the butcher's shop, to buy our beefsteak," muttering rapidly, partly to himself, partly to his impatient companion. "The tide is full out now, the water will be shallow; I can take off my shoes and stockings and carry you, pup. Who cares if it's cold?"