Page:Handbook for Boys.djvu/329

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308
Boy Scouts

"time," all stand up at the spot which they have reached, and the nearest wins.

Demonstrate the value of adapting color of clot hes to background by sending out one boy about five hundred yards to stand against different backgrounds in turn, till he gets one similar in color to his own clothes.

The rest of the patrol to watch and to notice how invisible he becomes when he gets a suitable background. E.g., a boy in a gray suit standing in front of dark bushes, etc., is quite visible—but becomes less so if he stands in front o.f a gray rock or house; a boy in a dark suit is very visible in a green field, but not when he stands in an open door-way against dark interior shadow.

Scout Hunting

One scout is given time to go out and hide himself, the remainder then start to find him; he wins if he is not found, or if he can get back to the starting point within a given time without being touched.

Relay Race

One patrol pitted against another to see who can get a message sent a long distance in shortest time by means of relays of runners (or cyclists). The patrol is ordered out to send in three successive notes or tokens (such as sprigs of certain plants), from a point, say, two miles distant or more. The leader in taking his patrol out to the spot drops scouts at convenient distances, who will then act as runners from one post to the next and.back. If relays are posted in pairs, messages can be passed both ways.

Track Memory

Make a patrol sit with their feet up, so that other scouts can study them. Give the scouts, say, three minutes to study the boots. Then leaving the scouts in a room or out of sight, let one of the patrol make some footmar-ks in a good bit of ground. Call up the scouts one by one and let them see the track and say who made it.

Spot the Thief

Get a stranger to make a track unseen by the scouts. The scouts study his track so as to know it again.

Then put the stranger among eight or ten others and let them all make their tracks for the boys to see, going by in rotation. Each scout then in turn whispers to the umpire which man,