Page:Scouting for girls, adapted from Girl guiding.djvu/129

Rh And in the same way you should notice any strange sound or any peculiar smell, and think for yourself what it may mean. Unless you learn to notice "sign" you will have very little of "this and that" to put together, and so you will be of no use as a Girl Scout. It comes by practice. Remember a Scout always considers it a great disgrace if an outsider discovers a thing before she herself does, whether that thing is far away or close by.

Don't only look at the path before you, but frequently turn and look back. Notice the features of the country behind you, to see what your road will look like in coming back again.

In the streets of a strange town a Girl Scout will mark her way by the principal buildings and side-streets, and in any case she will notice what shops she passes and what is in their windows; also what vehicles pass her, and such details as whether the horses' harness and shoes are all right; and most especially what people she passes, what their faces are like, their dress, their boots, and their way of walking, so that if, for instance, she should be asked by a policeman, "Have you seen a man with dark overhanging eyebrows, dressed in a blue suit, going down this street?" she should be able to give some such answer as "Yes; he was walking a little lame with the right foot, wore foreign-looking boots, was carrying a parcel in his hand; he turned down Gold Street, the second turning on the left from here, about three minutes ago."

Information of that kind has often been of the greatest value in tracing out a criminal, but so many people go along with their eyes shut and never notice things.