(As I predicted, this site’s visitor counts have dropped back to their standard minimal level. Alas, there goes my leverage to earn an official Internet Comic Strip Influencer tee shirt.

It seems likely that the the short-term visitor here was based on my adding a page tag for Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest to a few recent blog posts, thus showing up in online searches. Sure seems an easy way to gin-up visitor counts, if you don’t care why you get visitors. Presumably, I could stick all kinds of popular search terms in my page tags and get impressive counts.)

Interesting; we’re looking at a story that apparently happened before Mark and Cherry’s Las Vegas story. We’re in some undefined time which seems to be substituting for what Rusty is doing in real time. Very suspicious…! Regular follower Doghouse Reilly thought that Rusty’s freakish look yesterday helps distinguish him from the classical Rusty who’s life seemed limited to waiting for Mark to come home so they could fish. Well, it’s true that the current incarnation of Rusty is more rambunctious and has a more interesting personality; but he can be just as awkward and dim-witted as he predecessor. They are kids, after all!

We now learn something else new:  Rusty is in the Wood Scouts, a Boy Scouts knock off, minus the merit badge sash. The name “Wood Scouts” was previously used in an adult animated series about kids called “Camp Camp”, where the Woods Scouts is a rival dark, militant kid’s camp, whose members are hard cases and bullies.  Jules Rivera must have watched the series. You, too, can watch it on YouTube.

Anyway, are Rusty and his friends the only members of this troop? Looks like it. So I’m guessing Rusty’s rival friend Robbie Shaw is the badge earner. Is it any coincidence his dad is troop leader Ranger Shaw? What do you think? We’ve already seen examples of Ranger Shaw’s suspicious activities in the past. Okay, I’ll withhold judgement for the time being.