Page:Scouting for girls, adapted from Girl guiding.djvu/114

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SCOUTING FOR GIRLS

or pieces of wood, saying how they are getting on; where water may be found; or warning their pals of various dangers. "Don't follow this road," (X) is also made when necessary. Meanwhile the second party of Scouts start (having given the cowboys ten minutes' start) not as the expected friends, but as a party of Indians, who have picked up the trail and are hot on the track of the "palefaces." They follow, destroying all the cowboys' tracks and signs, and reading their messages. Indian scouts may be sent on, singly (fast runners) to reconnoitre, and report on the number and deportment of the cowboys. But the Indian scout does this at her own peril. If she is seen by the palefaces she becomes their prisoner, and must go on with them. (Any cowboy seeing an enemy scout calls out her name, whereupon the Indian must play fair and surrender.) The palefaces eventually run short of provisions, at the end of a half a mile (or more) and are obliged to halt. Believing Indians to be following them, they take cover. The Indians, finding that the trail has come to an end, search for the cowboys (seeing and calling out the name being equal to killing), but any paleface who manages to creep out of her cover and touch an Indian before she is seen herself kills her (puts her out of action). The game is won by the party having the largest number of survivors when the Captain blows her whistle.

A game by which reading Morse may be practised is as follows:

About twelve Scouts can play at it. The Scouts each choose a letter of the alphabet. This (printed large in