THE FOUNDING OF THE WOLF PATROL
On the next Monday evening Dick burst into his uncle's house like a
whirlwind. Mr. Elliott was in his 'den,' reading the paper, and he
looked up with a smile as the boy entered.
'Oh, uncle,' cried out Dick, 'can't we begin scouting at once? It's
the jolliest thing I ever heard of, and all my chums think the same.
We'd like to make up a patrol at once. And you said you'd lend us a
hand, didn't you?'
'I did, Dick,' said his uncle, laying aside his paper. 'When is your
next half-holiday?'
'We get Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays half-holidays in the week,'
said Dick.
'All right,' said his uncle. 'I'll give you Thursday afternoons till
you're on your own legs. Bring your men up here on Thursday afternoon
at three.'
At the time named eight boys turned up, each with an eager look on his
face, and a copy of the first part of 'Scouting for Boys,' which he had
thumbed from end to end.
'Well, you're not scouts yet,' said Mr. Elliott to them, 'for you have
to pass the tests, you know.'
'We've been at work on them already, uncle,' replied Dick. 'We can
most of us do the first test--the knot-tying--and the last three are
easy enough.'
'Very good,' said Mr. Elliott. 'Then I'll try you here on Tests 1, 4,
and 6--the knots, the laws and signs of scouts, and the Union Jack
test.'
He took them in turn, and put everyone through his facings, and all
came through in good shape.
'Now for Test 2,' said Mr. Elliott--'to "track a deer's spoor, or
describe a shop window." Which will you have?'
'The spoor! the spoor!' cried the boys.
'Then we'll go on to the heath,' said he.
Twenty minutes' walk brought them clear of the houses, and the road ran
on through a great heath which stretched for several miles and was
quite unenclosed. The party struck into a side-path, and soon gained a
quiet spot. Here Mr. Elliott produced a pair of tracking-irons, which
the boys examined with the most eager interest, and prepared to test
the band one after another.
It was a capital place for the purpose, for clumps of gorse and holly
were thickly scattered over the heath, affording excellent cover, and
through these clumps the trainer would lay a track which each boy must
follow for a quarter of a mile, and make the journey within fifteen
minutes.
Five boys were successful, among these being Arthur Graydon and Dick
Elliott. Three boys failed, not because their eyesight was poorer than
that of the rest, but simply because they were unobservant, and did not
pick up the trail quickly at one or two points where Mr. Elliott laid
little traps for them, for he did not believe in making the test too
easy.
'Well,' said Dick's uncle, 'five of you rank as second-class scouts
now, and can make a beginning with a patrol; the other three will
qualify next time, I expect.' And he took the failures in hand and
showed them where they had slipped up in tracking his spoor. Mixed
with instruction, he told them stories of the wonderful tracking he had
seen performed in South Africa by both white men and natives, and the
afternoon passed all too quickly for the deeply interested boys.
'What shall we call our patrol?' asked George Lee, one of the
successful boys in passing the tests, as they walked home.
'I vote for Wolf!' cried Dick--'the Wolf Patrol! That sounds jolly, I
think.'
'Yes, we'll have that--the Wolf,' said Arthur Graydon.
'We must wait a little,' said Mr. Elliott, 'and see if any other
patrols have been formed in Bardon. It won't do to clash, but I'll see
about that.'
Mr. Elliott made inquiries, and found that though there was some talk
of forming patrols here and there, yet not one was actually in
existence in the neighbourhood. So Dick and his friends became 1st
Bardon Troop, Wolf Patrol, and were very proud of that fact.
The Wolf Patrol now turned to with a will to convert themselves from
second-class scouts into first-class. Arthur Graydon was chosen patrol
leader, and Dick Elliott was the corporal. Whenever the Wolves met
each other they gave the scouts' salute with great care, the rank and
file receiving the secret sign in half-salute, while Arthur Graydon, as
patrol-leader, was greeted with the full salute. Their pocket-money
went like water for patrol flags, badges, crests, and tracking-irons,
and every boy rigged himself up with khaki shorts and a khaki hat with
broad brim, in proper scouts' style. Above all, they practised without
ceasing the wolf's howl, which was the secret call of their patrol.
Several of the Wolf Patrol lived quite near to each other, and at night
they would go into their gardens, and scout would howl to scout in such
mournful, long-drawn notes that peaceful, elderly gentlemen, reading
the evening paper after dinner, rushed out to see if murder was being
done somewhere.