Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

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Young Knights of the Empire

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deeds are not so much seen. Here is a case: Patrol Leader Leonard Sanderson, of the 1st Jesmond Troop, met with a bad lift accident, and smashed his thigh. But even when in awful pain, and in the shock of the sudden accident, he made light of it for fear of worrying his parents. Then he was for many weeks in hospital, and had to undergo several operations, but he was always cheerful and patient. Many presents of fruit came to him, but, like a true Scout he shared them with the other patients. He made toys for the sick children, and helped the nurses to roll bandages. He never forgot his duty as a Scout, and proved himself a good example for others to follow. * * * * * A SCOUT WHO WAS A SCAMP. "The boy who stopped the runaway horse would never have done it if he had not been a Scout. He was formerly a first-class young scamp and always in some mischief." That is what the report says of him. But that is what happens when a lad becomes a Scout; he is no longer a fool-boy, who goes about yelling aimlessly and making himself a nuisance to everybody. Instead of that he smartens into a manly fellow, ready at any moment to give a helping hand to anybody who wants it, and without taking any reward for it, and without thinking how poor or rich, how old or young the person may be. I was talking once to a well-known nobleman, who told me that he broke his leg not long ago, and when it was getting right his doctor advised him to go and walk a little every day with two sticks to support him. He accordingly went to Hampstead Heath, and was waddling along quite comfortably, an inch at a time, when a patrol of Scouts came up, and the Leader saluted and said: "May we help you, sir? We could make a stretcher out of our coats and staves, and carry you." The Duke said that when he looked at the boys and thought of them trying to carry him--for he is not a small man--he nearly laughed aloud; but as it was he thanked them very much and told them how he was walking purposely to get his leg into working order. This kind intention, however, has given the Scouts a warm place in his heart. * * * * * TRACKING EXERCISE. When I am walking along a road or path, I generally do a little tracking every day, because it is only by constant practice that a fellow can learn tracking or can keep his eye in when he has learnt it. It is quite easy and simple to do, only Scouts often do not think of doing it. Here, for instance, is what I did one morning. There is nothing wonderful in it, but Scouts will understand all the better that such practice should be an everyday matter, and not merely attempted on some great occasion. It is bound to be a failure then if it has not been regularly gone in for before. My practice was on an ordinary country road, dry and hard, with a slight layer of dust in most places, up and down hill; between high hedges; no wind (wind, you know, soon flattens out tracks in dust and makes them look much older than they really are). At about eight o'clock in the morning, as I passed from one field to another, I crossed the main road at the point where it reached the top of a hill. I read some news on the ground, and this is what it said "_Mrs. Sharp is ill this morning; and Johnny Milne has been to the railway station to fetch some newspapers._" This was how I got at it. There were only two fresh tracks. One was of a boy walking and the other of a bicycle. The boy's footmarks showed a nailed boot, not big enough for a man, walking along the road which led to the school and to the railway station. It was Saturday, a whole holiday, so he could not be going to school; he would therefore be going to the station. Why to the station? Because at 7.33 the train came with the newspapers, and there were his tracks going back again, (_They occasionally overtrod the outgoing footprints._) One boy in the village, Johnny Milne, was employed by the shop to fetch the papers from the train. So if the train were punctual he would have passed this spot on his way back about twenty minutes later; that was at seven minutes to eight. [Illustration: "Mrs. Sharp is ill, and Johnny Milne has brought the

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