One by one the blank spaces on the card were filled in by the initials of some councilor. On Saturday afternoon Dirk, after helping Jim Avery after lunch at the store, raced to the boat dock and took his final swimming test, diving into the water head-first as Brick Ryan had taught him, and rounding a life-boat stationed fifty yards out, in all handling himself so neatly that he won a nod from Wally Rawn and a promise to be allowed to help keep the score in the inter-tent Boat Regatta that afternoon.
Dirk arose at dawn on Sunday morning, when around him all the camp was asleep. He shivered as he looked into the misty drizzle that fell among the pines; but screwing up his resolution, threw off the warm blankets and slipped into his heavier clothing and high laced boots. His woodcraft exhibit, a rustic birchwood bench circling the wild-cherry tree beyond the lodge, was still uncompleted; and his skill at axmanship was far from great. He sighed as he shouldered his hand ax and went through the dripping woods to a grove of birches beyond the Council Ring; but the work warmed him in short order, and he was soon whistling as he trimmed the smooth white saplings and split them for his purpose.
It still lacked half an hour to Reveille—which always came later on Sundays—when Dirk stepped back from his work at the base of the cherry tree, and surveyed his progress. The little bench needed only a few more slats in the seat to be completed and ready for the use of all campers; the braces were as steady as Dirk could make them, each sunk some inches into the ground and set with wedged rocks. The boy stood sucking his thumb, which had received a blow of his ax-head instead of the nail at which he had aimed; and thus he was unaware that the Chief had approached in his silent fashion and was at his elbow.
The Chief’s face was as unreadable as ever as he nodded in answer to Dirk’s “Good morning!” merely striding to the bench and testing it with his weight. Sitting there, he gazed at the eager lad and smiled gravely.
“A good bench,” he said, and paused. Then:
“Dirk, you’ve been working mighty hard on your emblem, haven’t you?”
“I only have two more things to finish, sir.”
“H’mm. Dirk, what would you say if I told you that, even if you finished these two things, you couldn’t go on the Long Trail this year?”