ROY BLAKELEY’S ROUNDABOUT HIKE
HE AND PEE-WEE WERE TRYING TO CLIMB UP OVER THE SAME SIDE OF THE BOAT.
ROY BLAKELEY’S
ROUNDABOUT HIKE
BY
PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of
THE TOM SLADE BOOKS, THE ROY BLAKELEY
BOOKS, THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS,
WESTY MARTIN, HERVEY
WILLETTS, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
H. S. BARBOUR
PUBLISHED WITH THE APPROVAL OF
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1927
GROSSET & DUNLAP
CONTENTS
- [Here We Are]
- [Kerflop]
- [The Big Four]
- [The Quitter]
- [The Stranger]
- [Where There’s a Will]
- [Beaver Chasm]
- [Plans of Campaign]
- [Hercules Harris]
- [The Distant Flicker]
- [In The Dark]
- [The Reward]
- [It Is to Laugh]
- [Honors and Awards]
- [The Hero Maker]
- [Reel Heroes]
- [Talk Is Cheap]
- [Waiting]
- [The Fixer]
- [The Full Salute]
- [The Lake Trail]
- [Sounds in the Night]
- [The Other Fellow]
- [Safe]
- [Being a Scout]
- [The Day Before]
- [The Last Hike]
- [Follow Your Leader]
- [The Distant Whistle]
- [The North Bound]
- [Held]
- [Better Than Gold]
ROY BLAKELEY’S ROUNDABOUT HIKE
ROY BLAKELEY’S ROUNDABOUT HIKE
CHAPTER I
HERE WE ARE
Every time I start telling you about one of our hikes, I say it’s the craziest hike I ever took. I guess it’s true, because they’re all crazier than each other. If there are a lot of things and each one of them is crazier than the other, that shows they’re all the craziest. If you don’t believe it, you can do it by long division only I like short division better—the shorter it is the better I like it. Even if there wasn’t any arithmetic at all I’d be satisfied.
But there’s one good thing about ancient history and that is we don’t study it in my grade. Next term I get civilized government and French pastry or history or something or other—I’m going to get a bicycle too. Then I’m going to have a bicycle trip and write about it.
So now I’m going to tell you about our latest hike—it’s a nineteen twenty-six model only it hasn’t got four wheel brakes. It hasn’t got any brakes at all—we just kept on going and going and going. The noise you hear will be Pee-wee Harris; when he talks, he’s always trying to get distance. Don’t blame me, I couldn’t get rid of him.
I’ll tell you how it was. When we got to Temple Camp, I said I was going to start a new up-to-date hike with all improvements. I said it was going to be so crazy that all the other hikes would have a lot of sense compared to it. Even I wrote a proclamation and tacked it up on the bulletin-board outside of Administration Shack, calling for volunteers absolutely positively for not more than one day’s service—maybe two days. It said that any one who was interested should call on Roy Blakeley at Silver Fox Cabin and that if I wasn’t there they should hunt around for me. Because most always if I’m not in one place, I’m in another. I’m sure to be somewhere. It said if they were interested they were lucky.
Of course, the first one to come up was Pee-wee Harris. He didn’t have far to come, because his patrol bunks in the next cabin to ours. He’s the head chip of the Chipmunks. He’s the one that had the law of supply and demand passed, especially demand. He’s a nice little scout, only he hasn’t got a voice to fit his size. His voice is a large thirty-six—it was made for a couple of giants. If there was a volcano going you couldn’t even hear it on account of Pee-wee.
Right away he wanted to know all about the hike. “When is it going to be and where is it going to be to?” he wanted to know.
“It’s not going to be to, it’s going to be from,” I told him. “And there are going to be only four Scouts in it—maybe six or seven. It’s going to start to-morrow morning at about three o’clock in the afternoon if it’s a pleasant evening and you’re not going to be in it. So you can see how good it’s going to be.”
“What’s the name of it?” he wanted to know. Because all our crazy hikes have names.
“It’s named the table d’hote hike,” I said, “and I got the idea of it from a grab-bag. It’s got a little of all our other hikes mixed into it; they’re going to be all separated together.”
He said, “What do you want to call it the table d’hote hike for? Don’t you know that’s a kind of a dinner? You’re crazy! Anyway, how can a hike be from a place? It’s got to be to a place. You can’t come from a place till you go to it first, can you?” He was starting to shout—you know how he does.
“Sure, doesn’t mince-meat come from an animal called a mince?” I said to him. “This hike is going to start from somewhere else and go to another place. As long as two places are separated there can be a hike. Anybody that knows geometry can do that. If two places are mixed into one, there can’t be any hike—that’s a fundamental proposition.”
“You don’t know what fundamental means,” he yelled.
“It’s derived from the word fun,” I told him, “and that’s my middle name. Mental means the opposite from physical—you learn that in the second grade. Mental means in your mind. Fundamental means fun in your mind. Ask me another.”
“Are you going to tell me about the hike or not?” the kid shouted. “How can I make up my mind if I want to go on it if I don’t know what it is?”
By that time a lot of Scouts were standing around laughing. Gee whiz, it doesn’t take much to get Pee-wee started.
I said, “Do you think a big enterprise like a hike can be started without due thought and consideration—and you needn’t tell me I got those words out of a book, because I know I did. Do you think Christopher Columbus started out to discover Columbus, Ohio, without making all plans and everything? I don’t know what kind of a hike it’s going to be yet. I’ll probably decide yesterday afternoon. And then I’ll pick out who’s going to go on it. I want four fellows and they’ve all got to be crazy.”
“They’ll be good and hungry before they get back,” said Pee-wee.
“That’s nothing, you’re good and hungry before you start out,” I told him. “You never get hungry, because you’re already that way.” Gee whiz, a meal a minute is that kid’s speed. The reason he never boils his vegetables is he’s afraid they’ll shrink. One night he stayed awake three hours trying to figure out how he could eat more than one meal at a time and after a while he woke up and found his mouth open, so he had to get up and shut it. This isn’t so much of a chapter, anyway I should worry, maybe the next one will be even still worse.
CHAPTER II
KERFLOP
Now I’m going to start writing the next chapter and I’m going to keep writing it till the dinner gong rings, so you can see it’s going to have a good ending. It has a good ending even before it starts. It ends in a rice pudding, but oh boy, wait till you see what the last one ends in. I bet you think I’m a crazy author, hey? Anyway, I have a lot of fun.
So now I guess I’ll tell you how my celebrated, world renowned, crazy hikes started. First we got carried away in a railroad car and that was a dandy hike only it wasn’t a hike at all, but it was like one only different. Then four of us had a bee-line hike and went straight to a place on account of a solemn vow that we wouldn’t turn right or left. Then, the next one was a funny-bone hike dedicated to an insane asylum and the next time I go on one like that, I’ll know it—follow your leader, that was it; oh boy! Then we had a tangled trail hike where we had to keep turning to the left no matter what—some mixup! We went home by the way of the Cape of Good Hopeless. Then, we had an elastic hike, because it stretched way out. Most of the fellows that read about our hikes like them—no wonder, because they don’t have to go on them.
Anyway, that night up at Temple Camp I didn’t think any more about a new kind of a hike, because I couldn’t think of a way to have a table d’hote hike, having all the different kinds of hikes kind of separated together. But anyway, I thought up a good name for that kind of a hike, I’d call it the symposium hike, it’s taken from the word simp and it means a lot of different things together.
Early the next morning, as soon as anybody could see the bulletin-board, Scouts started coming up to my patrol cabin to join the hike—jiminies, you’d think I was the Pilgrim Fathers starting out. I told them there wouldn’t be any hike till I thought of a good one. “Do you think I haven’t got my vast public to think about?” I told them. “Boy scouts all over the country who are always writing letters to find out if I’m real or just imitation. And anyway,” I said, “I’m not going to take the whole of Temple Camp with me—only just four fellows.”
That same morning I got an idea and I’m sorry now that I got it. I was just going out on the lake with Dub Smedley—he comes from Jersey City, I don’t blame him. We were going to catch some sunfish. All of a sudden I saw Pee-wee sitting way out on the end of the springboard dangling his legs. He belongs in my troop (I guess you know that) only up at Temple Camp, I don’t see much of him, lucky for that, I’m not kicking. He hangs around the cook shack most of the time. Me, I’m out for life, liberty and the pursuit of snappiness. You follow me and you’ll have some fun, don’t worry, especially in this story that’s every word true. Even the ink I’m writing with is true blue or true too or too true. I’m even greater than George Washington, because he couldn’t tell a lie and and I can only I won’t. And besides, I’d rather be myself than George Washington, because he’s dead—anyway, we were going out to fish for sunfish when I happened to see Pee-wee. I was eating an apple and I threw the core at him and that’s the end of this paragraph, just where he starts to yell. Gee whiz, you’d think it was the end of the world.
“One strike out,” I shouted at him. “What’s that you’ve got in your hand?”
“It’s something I invented,” he hollered at me, “and you’re so fresh you nearly knocked it in the lake. Did I say I’d give you a shot?”
“Come on, let’s row over to him,” I said to Dub. “I’d rather jolly him along than catch sunfish.” That’s my favorite outdoor sport, jollying Pee-wee.
So we rowed over just under the springboard and I caught hold of one of his legs so the boat wouldn’t drift. “What is it anyway?” I asked him. “Let’s look at it.”
“It’s a windmeter,” he said.
“A which?” I asked him.
“It’s for telling which way the wind blows,” he said, “and I’m going to see if I can sell a lot of them. Maybe the Boy Scouts of America could use them and maybe they’ll get advertised in Boys’ Life.”
“They don’t care which way the wind blows,” I told him. “Let’s look at it.”
Oh boy, that was some invention. I’m glad Edison never saw it or he’d have died from jealousy. It was a long, thin bottle, maybe about ten inches long; Dub Smedley said a tooth-brush came in it. There were a lot of crinkly strips of confetti all different colors fixed to the cork; the ends of the strips were bound together and fixed to the cork with a pin. It was kind of like a comet only smaller. It was quite a little smaller. The way you did was to stick the cork in the bottle and hold on to the bottle and let the confetti all fly loose. Then, you could tell what way the wind was blowing. You moved it around in your fingers like a compass till the confetti blew straight out and then you knew that the closed up end of the bottle was pointed the way the wind wasn’t blowing. And the other end was pointing the way the wind was blowing. When you wanted to put that wonderful instrument in your pocket you just stuffed the confetti into the bottle and put the cork in that way. There were three or four matches in the bottle and a lightning bug in case the matches wouldn’t work. There was a cricket too and there was a hole in the cork so the wild animals could breathe.
“What’s the cricket for?” I asked the kid.
“Will you let go my leg?” he shouted. “Do you think I’m a mooring buoy or something?”
“What’s the cricket for?” I asked him. All the while Dub Smedley was laughing.
“That shows how much you don’t know about scouting,” Pee-wee said, good and excited. “That’s named the Chipmunk Scout Emergency Kit, and maybe I’m going to get it patented. It’s a combination windmeter and you can drink out of the tube if you’re famishing and you can use it for a compass too, because if you lay a cricket on the ground he’ll always start going south—”
“Starting for Florida, I guess,” said Dub.
“It’s wonderful,” I said. “It’s the most wonderful invention since Luther Burbank invented the shoe-tree.”
All of a sudden Dub said, “That would be a good idea for a crazy hike; we could go whichever way the wind blows.”
“If we do, I’m the one that invented it,” Pee-wee shouted. He meant the hike. You know he’s the one that invented the Boy Scouts of America. I wouldn’t just exactly say he invented the earth, but just the same, he made some wonderful improvements on it.
I said, “That’s a very fine crazy idea; we can hike to the four points of the compass.”
“You mean six points,” Dub said; “north, east, south, west, and hither and thither.”
So then I began to see that he’d be a good one to go on one of my crazy hikes.
I said, “How about yonder? We might go there, too. As long as we have a windmeter we can go everywhere.”
“Oh, we can go more places than that,” Dub said.
I said, “Sure, only one thing, I hope the windmeter reverses so we can come home again.” I said, “Has it got a reverse gear, kid?”
“Will you let go my leg!” Pee-wee hollered. “Geeeeeee whiz! You grab my windmeter in one hand and you grab my leg with the other and if you don’t look out, you’ll pull me off the springboard; a lot you care with your crazy talk! Now you’ve got a new feller started with all your nonsensical nonsense!”
I said, “Those are harsh words, Scout Harris. I’ve made a special study of crazy hikes ever since I was eighteen years old; I’m fifteen or sixteen now, and don’t you suppose that by this time I can be sure I don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“Will you let go my leg!” Pee-wee kept hollering. All the while Dub Smedley was laughing so hard I thought he’d tip the boat over.
I said, “You’d better look out, the water is supposed to be on the outside of the boat, it’s put there on purpose.”
Oh boy, you know how it is when I get started in mortal comeback with Pee-wee. Dub he just sat in the stern of the boat laughing and laughing. I had hold of Pee-wee’s leg, I mean one of them, because he’s got two and I’m thankful he hasn’t got four. All of a sudden a fellow that was in swimming caught hold of the boat so as he could rest and he kind of pulled it around and before I could let go of Pee-wee’s leg down he came kerflop into the water. I grabbed hold of his hat and pulled it down over the head of the fellow who was hanging on to the boat so he couldn’t see and he let go and then the next minute he and Pee-wee were trying to climb up over the same side of the boat and it was getting swamped and Dud and I were laughing and the kid was sputtering and—
Oh boy, there goes the dinner gong. I should worry about this chapter.
CHAPTER III
THE BIG FOUR
Now I’m going to write another chapter till I have to go to scout meeting. I have to get there at eight o’clock, but if I don’t get there till seven it won’t make any difference. Even if I didn’t get there at all, Pee-wee would be satisfied, but most always he’s never satisfied, especially about eats; say it with eats, that’s his motto. Anyway, this story isn’t about Bridgeboro where I am now; it’s about Temple Camp. Bridgeboro is where I live, it’s a good place to start out from, I’ll say that much for it. Anyway, I’ve had some pretty good fun there. I live in a dandy big house, it’s a two part house, it’s got an inside and an outside and I like the outside best, because it’s bigger—anyway, this story isn’t about Bridgeboro.
So then the four of us decided that as long as we were in a grand mixup together we’d stick together and have a hike the next morning. And that’s what this story is about—that hike. Some hike! The other fellow, the one that had on a bathing suit, was named Egg Sandwich and I guess that’s why Pee-wee wanted him to go. That wasn’t really his name; his name was Egbert Sanderson, but everybody called him Egg Sandwich for short. He comes from Rye, New York, so I guess he’s made of rye bread, but anyway, I like frankfurters better.
I said, “Now we have to hang together separately, because fate has thrown us together.”
“You think you’re smart talking like a book,” Pee-wee said. He was all wet and shivering, jiminies he looked awful funny.
“You’d better go up to your patrol cabin,” I told him, “and get some dry clothes on and we’ll row around and wait for you. You’re shaking all over from head to foot, you remind me of a milk shake and you needn’t ask me if I got shaking all over from head to foot out of a book, because I got it out of an ash barrel.” That kid thinks whenever I use dandy language I got it out of a book. He doesn’t know I’m such a famous author, I’m the only one that knows it, that proves I’m smarter than anybody else, because I know something that nobody else knows. “Go on up, we’ll wait for you,” I said.
I bet you like this story already, hey? But only you just wait, it’s going to be even worse.
So, now, kind of, while we’re waiting for Pee-wee to come back, I’ll tell you about us, because we’re the ones you’re going to be with for a whole lot of chapters—you should worry about Temple Camp. But it’s one dandy place, I’ll say that. They have as many as four hundred Scouts there to say nothing of trustees and scoutmasters—why should I say anything about them? I mind my business and they mind mine. Chocolate Drop, he’s cook, and I mind his business, believe me. Two helpings of dessert—yum, yum!
I’m the patrol leader of the Silver-plated Fox Patrol, First Bridgeboro, New Jersey Troop. We’re solid plated silver and we’re guaranteed for a year. Thank goodness you won’t meet any of that bunch in this story. If you want to know how I look you’ll see my face on the cover of this book and it shows me laughing at Pee-wee. A lot of fellows write to me and want to know all about me so now I guess I’ll tell them. My favorite recreation is jollying Pee-wee. I like schools, I mean a school of perch, and next to roasting Pee-wee I like roast pork. My favorite flower is graham flour and I like graham crackers next to animal crackers and my favorite color is a blackish white. I like the water, but I like root beer better. You can have lots of fun jollying girls. I hope now you’re satisfied.
Pee-wee, like I told you, is in the same troop with me. He lives on Terris Avenue in Bridgeboro. He’s got one mother, one father, one sister and three million appetites. He used to be in the Raving Ravens, then he started the Chipmunks and all that bunch were up at camp when we had this hike, but most of the time Pee-wee doesn’t bother much with his patrol—they’re lucky. Anyway, I guess you know all about Pee-wee and me. If you’re not deaf, dumb and blind, you must know about him. Me, I’m more quiet like a sawmill.
Dub Smedley belongs in Jersey City, it’s right next to a ferry. He belongs to a troop there only his troop wasn’t up in Temple Camp with him. They went somewhere, I don’t know where. He said his scoutmaster was named Redman, so I guess that bunch are a lot of Indians. Dub was a second-hand Scout, I mean second class. He was a nice fellow all right. His favorite outdoor sport is sitting on the ground and moving back and forth and laughing so hard when I jolly Pee-wee, that sometimes he even falls over and rolls on the ground—he laughs so hard. He’s got freckles, that fellow has.
Egg Sandwich was alone at Temple Camp too. He belongs in a troop at Rye in New York. He’s an awful nice fellow, kind of sober like. I asked him if he thought he could be crazy enough to go on one of my hikes and he said yes—he said he was crazy to go.
Pee-wee said, “Sure, you’re crazy to go—anybody that goes is crazy. I’m not, because I’m so used to him I don’t mind him—” he meant me.
“The pleasure is yours and many of them,” I told him. “I take you because I want to do Temple Camp a good turn. I’d like to be here sometime when you’re away to see how it is when you’re not here. If I could be somewhere else when you’re in another place, that’s my idea of the end of a perfect day.”
“Now you hear how he talks!” the kid shouted. I said, “Look out, you’ll tip the boat over.”
“When he talks like that he calls it an argument,” he yelled. “You fellers will see before we get through—you’ll rue the day—”
“Goodness me, such fine language to be using on a week day,” I told him. “I never rued a day yet, but even if I knew how to rue one, I wouldn’t do it.”
“Even before we start he has to talk crazy,” Pee-wee said.
All the while we were rowing around on the lake. I said, “This is my idea—all those not in favor of it, shut up. If two vote against the other two, it’s a majority.”
“For which side?” the kid shouted.
“For both sides,” I told him. “What’s fair for one is fair for the other. United—”
“If you’re going to say, ‘united, we stand, divided we sprawl’ you needn’t say it,” the kid screamed at me. “I heard you say it fifty quadrillion times and it hasn’t got any sense to it!”
I said, “Young Harris, you’re speaking to the leader of the Silver Foxes, modify your tones.”
“I haven’t got any tones,” he yelled, “and—”
“Well, that’s your lookout,” I said. “Are we going to talk about the hike or are we going to discuss it—which? My idea is to start to-morrow just before breakfast—”
“You mean just after breakfast,” Pee-wee said.
Dub said, “No, Roy is right as he usually isn’t That’s a good idea, we’ll start before breakfast.”
“Then you can count me out,” Pee-wee said “and you can’t use my windmeter and you won’t know where you’re going.”
“We don’t want to know where we’re going,” Egg Sandwich said. “The less knowledge we carry with us, the better. Scouts are supposed not to carry a lot of stuff when they go hiking.”
“Right the first time,” I told him. “Ideas are stuff, just the same as any other stuff. Deny it if you dare.”
“Will you answer me a civilized question?” the kid asked me.
“If it’s not too civilized,” I said. “What is it?”
“Why do we have to go on a hike without eating breakfast?”
“I never said we did,” I told him. “Wrong the first time. I said we’d start before breakfast—from my patrol cabin. Then we’ll stop in the eats pavilion for breakfast.”
He said, “Oh.”
“Then we’ll go out in front of Administration Shack and hold the windmeter up and see which way the wind is blowing if any and if so, why not. Am I right? Do you follow me?”
“We’re way ahead of you,” Dub said.
“Then we’ll all raise our hands and make a solemn vow—”
“There you go with your solemn vows,” the kid shouted. “That means we won’t have anything to eat all day, I know.”
I said, “Your leader would like to have a large chunk of silence and very little of that. We are going to go whichever way the wind blows, north, south, east, west—”
“Hither,” said Dub.
“Thither,” said Egg Sandwich.
“Or yon,” I said. “It’s settled. The rules will be very simple. We’ll go where the wind goes. We’ll return when we get back. We won’t take anything with us, not even any ideas. The only excess baggage that we carry will be Pee-wee.”
Dub said, “The object of the expedition is to find out where the wind goes—to stalk it.”
I said, “Sure, and to find out what it does when it gets there and if so where. Am I right?”
“Absolutely, unanimously,” said Egg Sandwich.
CHAPTER IV
THE QUITTER
Now pretty soon it’s going to start. The next morning we went in front of Administration Shack and everybody was there laughing at us. I made a kind of a speech. I said, “We, the big four, I mean the big three and a half, on account of Pee-wee, do solemnly pledge our words that we will go the way the wind blows till five o’clock to-night, because then we’ll have to come home on account of supper. The solemn pledge only lasts till five o’clock.”
One Scout said, “Why don’t you make it last for the rest of the season? If you got back by Labor Day that would be all right. What’s your hurry?”
I said, “We will be at camp-fire to-night with much scientific information to impart about the winds because wherever they go, we’re going to follow them with Scout Harris’ famous windmeter, patent not applied for.”
So then I held up that crazy thing and the confetti all blew out pointing into the woods up in back of the camp. That was west. The cricket escaped out of the bottle—I guess he decided he didn’t want to go. I dumped the lightning bug out, too. So then we started up into the woods and every now and then we held up the windmeter to make sure we were going right. Oh boy, we were having a peachy hike. It was like a regular, sensible hike, even. Pretty soon I knew we were coming to Bagley’s Green, that’s a village. You go through the woods about two miles and then you come to the railroad cut and then Bagley’s Green.
Now I’ll tell you how it was. When we started out it was early in the morning and there was a good breeze. You know how it is mornings. But by the time we got to Bagley’s Green the breeze had died down. There’s a kind of a little park sort of where the railroad station is and when we got to that, there wasn’t any breeze at all.
I said, “A Scout’s honor is to be toasted or trusted or something or other. We’ve got to stop here till the wind springs up. And anyway, I just as soon take a rest. If the wind can take a rest, we can, too. What’s fair for one is fair for all.”
So we all sat down on the grass in the middle of that place, we should worry. It was a kind of a big lawn all around the station.
Dub said, “If the breeze started coming from the east we wouldn’t know it on account of the station; the station would act like a windshield.”
I said, “Don’t worry, if we see it acting that way, we’ll know the wind is around on the other side of it. We’ll appoint Pee-wee a committee to watch how the station acts.”
Egg Sandwich said, “What are we going to do, just sit here?”
“Sure,” I said, “it’s according to rules. We’re governed by the wind. We may have to stay here for hours.”
“How can we be governed by the wind when there isn’t any?” the kid wanted to know.
“That’s easy,” I told him. “You might as well say how can we starve if we haven’t got any food to be deprived of. Gee whiz, you’re in the third grade and take up zoology and you don’t know that! I’ll have a game of mumbly-peg with anybody,” I said.
Dub said, “This is a fine kind of a hike—two miles and then get stalled.”
“Look at ships; don’t they get becalmed?” I said. “Come on, let’s have a game of mumbly-peg.”
So then we all started playing mumbly-peg with Dub’s jack-knife. I said, “Gee, this is a dandy hike; it’s the best hike I ever didn’t take; you don’t get all tired out, that’s one thing.”
“It’s a hikeless hike,” Sandy said. Sometimes we called that fellow Sandy, but that’s not saying anything against egg sandwiches.
“If we don’t think up some other kind of a hike, we’ll be stalled here all night, maybe,” Pee-wee said. “Anyway, till five o’clock. Do you think I want to sit here in the sun and play mumbly-peg all afternoon? Geeeee whiz!”
“Don’t blame me, blame the wind,” I told him.
“How can I blame it when there isn’t any to blame?” he shouted.
“That’s a good argument,” I told him.
“I’m thinking about lunch-time more than I’m thinking about arguments,” Pee-wee said. “What are we going to do at twelve o’clock?”
“We’ll eat our own words,” Sandy said, “and go any way we want to.”
“Sure, a couple of solemn vows will make a nice lunch,” I said. “What do we care where we go? The wind is the quitter, not us, I should worry.” I said, “We’ll stay here till twelve o’clock and if the breeze doesn’t spring up by that time, we’ll go to the next village willynilly, that means any way no matter what. Then, we’ll buy some eats.”
“If we had brought some with us like I wanted to do, we could eat them now,” Pee-wee said. “That’s what we get for starting out not prepared like Scouts are supposed not ever to do—now you see what we get.”
“I don’t see it,” Dub said.
“You mean what we don’t get,” I said. “Where do you suppose that breeze went anyway? I’d just like to know where it went.”
“Maybe it went crazy like you,” Pee-wee shouted.
“I never thought of that,” I told him.
Jiminies, we were all sprawling on the grass talking a lot of nonsense and kidding Pee-wee and taking each other’s hats off and pulling up grass and throwing it in each other’s faces—a lot we cared about hiking.
“Now you see how it is,” the Kid said to Dub and Sandy. “Do you blame the Scouts over at camp that they won’t go on hikes with him—gee whiz, they all had a taste of it. We always get stalled like this and just sit around fooling and don’t do anything and he calls it a hike. Even he’ll write all about it and a publisher will print it to show how crazy he is and he’ll expect fellers to buy those books where he tells a lot of crazy nonsense. This is the first summer you fellers ever saw him, but he’s like this all the time, you ask Westy Martin in his own patrol. He’s the only one of them that’s got any sense.”
I said, “Scout Harris, you will cease talking about my old college chump, Westy Martin. I won’t hear another word against him. He can’t help it if he has some sense—he’s more to be pitied than blamed. I won’t hear a word against him—not even a punctuation mark. Anyway, what’s the use of having sense? That’s one law I have no use for, the law of gravity.”
Dub said, “Let’s tell riddles.”
“Sure,” I said, “that’s a good idea. Now the hike is really started. Why doesn’t Santa Claus wear a scout suit? Give me any answer, I don’t care what, and I’ll give you the question to it.”
“Why doesn’t Santa Claus wear a scout suit?” the kid shouted.
“Because there isn’t any Santa Claus,” I told him. “No sooner said than stung. Open your mouth and I’ll shoot this grasshopper in it.”
By that time, Dub and Sandy were lying on their backs kicking their legs and laughing so hard they couldn’t speak.
After a while, Dub said, “Here’s an answer, and you give me the question to it.”
“Absotively, posolutely,” I told him.
He said, “The answer is yes.”
“The question is, is it?” I told him. “Any one else wants to ask an answer?”
“I’ll ask one,” Sandy said. “Yes, we have no marbles.”
“The question to that is, Why don’t we make some marble cake?” I said. “The way you do it is to subtract the adverb from the combined total with one to carry. Here comes a man.”
“You better stop your nonsense or he’ll think you’re crazy,” Pee-wee said. “I bet he’s going to chase us away from here.”
“I wonder where he blew in from,” Sandy said.
“Blew in! That’s a good one!” Dub said. “There isn’t enough breeze to blow any one to an ice cream soda.”
“Well, I’m going to go to one pretty soon whether I get blown to it or not,” Pee-wee shouted.
By that time we were all sitting up brushing the grass off ourselves and straightening up our hair kind of, on account of the man who was coming toward us.
“I think something is going to happen,” Dub said.
CHAPTER V
THE STRANGER
That man kept coming straight toward us across the green.
“Maybe we’re trespassing, hey?” Pee-wee said, kind of scared. “Now maybe we’re going to get into trouble.”
Pretty soon I saw the man was smiling and I knew everything was all right. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead and I saw he had a bald head—he didn’t have one hair on his head even. It looked like an egg. But anyway, he was smiling.
Dub said, “It’s all right, the face with a smile, grins.”
I said, “Hey mister, will you please tell us how to get off this field? We were hiking whichever way the wind blew and it stopped blowing, so now we can’t move.”
“You better look out how you talk,” Pee-wee said in a whisper.
By that time the man was right there. He was an awful nice man. He said, “There isn’t the slightest thing to worry about.”
I said, “We thought maybe we were going to get arrested.”
He said, “Oh dear me, no. I wouldn’t think of arresting Boy Scouts.”
“You might do it without thinking,” Dub said.
The man said, “I always look before I leap.” Then he said, “May I sit down and make myself at home?”
He sat down on the grass with his knees up and his arms around them. Gee, he was nice and friendly like. He said, “I’m tired myself. I’ve had a long walk.” When I told him we were Scouts from Temple Camp, he was a lot interested. He said he knew all about Temple Camp.
I asked him, “Do you live around here?”
“Not just here,” he said; “I live in Bagley Center. This is Bagley’s Green. I’m Saul Bagley. My people settled all this country around here. My father was Ephraim Bagley. This was all the old Bagley farm through here. Where that station is, used to be an apple orchard. You know if I had my way that whole strip of forest land east of Black Lake would belong to Temple Camp now. No one was sorrier than I was, when the camp didn’t get it; it was a pretty mean business all through. I told Mr. John Temple so myself. He’s a very fine man, Mr. John Temple.”
“Even I’ve been to his house,” Pee-wee piped up. “Even I had supper at his house—he’s a magnet. He owns so many railroads, he has a kind of a collection of them. Didn’t I make him a willow whistle to blow in case he gets held up by bandits—I leave it to Roy if I didn’t.”
Mr. Bagley put out his hand and shook hands with Pee-wee, like as if Pee-wee was a kind of a hero. I had to laugh.
I said, “You mustn’t mind our young hero. He’s the one that invented the Boy Scouts of America.”
Mr. Bagley said, “That was a very good invention.” Then he shook hands with Pee-wee again.
Jiminies, we knew all about the forest land east of Black Lake—anyway, Pee-wee and I did. Dub and Sandy were new fellows at camp, so maybe they didn’t. I’ll tell you how it was. Everybody at camp calls that the Bagley land—sometimes we call it Bagley woods. It’s east of Temple Camp. All the Scouts at camp knew about Mr. Temple wanting to buy it and give it to the camp. But anyway, he couldn’t buy it, because the Bagley estate wouldn’t sell it to him. But jiminy crinkums, I never bothered my head about it. Last summer it was fenced off with barbed-wire from Temple Camp and we couldn’t even go on it. A lot I should worry, they can take the land away altogether for all I care.
I asked Mr. Bagley, I said, “Are you one of the people that wouldn’t sell it to Temple Camp?”
He said, “Oh, goodness no!” just like that. He said those were the heirs and there were a lot of them. But he said anyway, he was the real heir. Jiminies, I felt sorry for him. He was mighty nice, just sitting there and talking to us like that. He said he liked boys, especially Scouts, and he said only for a tragedy that happened, Temple Camp would have all that land.
Oh boy, you should have seen Pee-wee’s eyes open—that’s his middle name, tragedies. He eats them alive. He said, “Was it a regular tragedy where somebody got killed—or maybe murdered or something?”
Mr. Bagley said, “My father, Ephraim Bagley was killed, and it was less than a mile from here. I have just visited the spot. I could hardly find it, it looked so different from when I was last there.”
Pee-wee said, “You ought to have blazed a trail, that’s the way Scouts do.” I guess Mr. Bagley must have thought he was very smart, because he just reached over and shook hands with him.
Mr. Bagley said, “My father was an old man and he had a very tragic end.” Then he kind of whispered to Dub and said, “And the Boy Scouts are the losers.”
“Will you tell us about it?” Pee-wee piped up.
Believe me, that was some tragedy he told us about. He said he lived in Bagley Center. That’s about five or six miles from Bagley’s Green. He said that several years ago his father—that was old Ephraim Bagley—made a will and it was going to be his last one. He said in that will the old man left him the farm at Bagley Center and all that woods near Temple Camp and everything.
The day he made the will, he started to Catskill with it so as to see his lawyer and to sign it in front of witnesses and everything. That night he didn’t come home and the next day they telephoned to Catskill and they found that he had been there and had signed his will and had it witnessed. Oh boy, you should have seen Pee-wee how he stared.
“Did bandits get him?” he wanted to know.
Mr. Bagley said, “No, but Beaver Chasm got him. We found him in the bottom of the chasm next day—dead.”
“Jiminies!” I said.
“You know Beaver Chasm, don’t you?” Mr. Bagley said.
“Sure, I know it!” Pee-wee shouted. “Didn’t I stalk a turtle down there? Suuuure, I know it.”
Mr. Bagley reached over and shook hands with Pee-wee just the same as before. I couldn’t make out whether he thought the kid was a wonderful hero for stalking a turtle, or whether he was just kind of making fun of him. I had to laugh, Pee-wee was so serious the way he shook hands.
Dub and Sandy didn’t know anything about Beaver Chasm, because they were new Scouts at camp. But I knew all about it. And Pee-wee knew all about it—he even owned it. It was a wonder he never had it wrapped up and sent home.
Mr. Bagley said, “Yes, sir, we found him lying in the bottom of the chasm—dead. Both of his legs and one of his arms were broken. We found his coat a few yards from where his body lay; it was caught on a clump of brush.” All of a sudden, Mr. Bagley leaned away over toward us and whispered, “And my father’s oilskin dispatch container with his will in it was gone. Was gone!” Then he sat up straight and just looked at us.
I said, “Gee, that was funny.”
“You call it funny!” Pee-wee shouted. “Don’t you even know when a thing is serious?”
Mr. Bagley just kept looking at us, kind of dark and suspicious like. I saw Dub sort of move as if he was uneasy for fear Mr. Bagley was thinking we knew something about it. Then Sandy asked him if it was ever found.
“It was never found,” he said, sort of slow like, and very serious. “And that’s the mystery. The oilskin dispatch container presented to my poor father by an overseas boy who carried a message from General Pershing to the British commander in it was gone from the pocket of my father’s coat—and with it his last will and testament.”
We were sort of scared, he looked at us so serious. He just kept looking at us. Then he said, “But I want you boys to know that if that will had been found, I would have been glad to sell all that woodland to Temple Camp, as sure as my name is Saul Bagley. I am for the Boy Scouts first, last and always. But I can’t be held responsible for the meanness, and the stubbornness, and the lack of public spirit of a crew of undeserving beneficiaries under a former will of my poor father, now can I?”
That’s just what he said; he used dandy big words.
CHAPTER VI
WHERE THERE’S A WILL
Jiminies, up to that time I never knew how near Temple Camp had come to getting that land. Because Mr. Saul Bagley sure was strong for the Scouts. He was mighty nice the way he spoke about Mr. Temple and all the councilors and trustees. And oh boy, didn’t he roast the people that owned the land! They were his cousins, but anyway, he didn’t have much use for them.
Pee-wee said, “Maybe those cousins knew about that will where he left everything to you and maybe they waited for him when he was on his way home and maybe they—maybe they did something to him, hey? So you wouldn’t get all the property and everything; hey? Maybe they got the will.”
Mr. Bagley said to Pee-wee, “I see you are a Boy Scout with brains. But you are mistaken. My cousins who came into my father’s property were all at home that night. I investigated everything myself. They were having a barn dance in their home. They are not murderers. There was no murder or foul play of any kind as far as I have been able to find out. And that’s the mystery.”
He said he would take us and show us just where his father’s body was found and that was when we forgot all about the wind dying down and our solemn pledge and everything. So you see our following-the-wind hike didn’t last long. And that’s why I’ll never trust the wind again—because it’s a quitter. Even a tempest I wouldn’t trust. Just like I told you in the beginning this hike goes every which way, and anyway, it isn’t a hike at all. But if you want to follow us you’ll see some fun.
On the way to Beaver Chasm, Mr. Bagley told us that he used to live with his father on the farm in Bagley Center. His cousins lived on another farm. After his father lost his life, Mr. Bagley went to live on the other farm with his cousins. Those were the people that got all of old man Bagley’s property. He said the reason why his father had left everything to those cousins was because he was good and mad on account of him running away from home. He said he ran away when he was fifteen years old and never came back till he was thirty—jiminies, I bet he had a lot of fun.
Dub said, “I bet you were a wild boy all right.”
Mr. Bagley said, “I sailed before the mast, twice around the Cape of Good Hope and once to Africa. I can show you boys an elephant’s tusk from an elephant I shot; I suppose that piece of ivory is worth a hundred dollars.” All the while he was walking along, he talked to us; oh boy, he was interesting.
Dub asked him how he happened to come home and he said he came home when his mother died. But even still his father kept on being mad at him, because he didn’t like to work around the farm—gee whiz, I didn’t blame him, I wouldn’t either, not after being in Africa and all places like that. But anyway, after a while old Ephraim Bagley decided he was sorry he had left him out of his will and he made a new one and took it to Catskill and got witnesses to it and everything. And that was where the cousins got left out entirely, in that will. But anyway, it didn’t do poor Mr. Saul Bagley any good.
Sandy, he’s very sober like when he’s not laughing at Pee-wee and me. He’s kind of sensible like Westy Martin, only different. He asked Mr. Bagley why he didn’t think that maybe those cousins did have something to do with the way old Mr. Bagley died and something to do with the way the will disappeared, too. Mr. Bagley said because nobody except him and his father knew about the will, so why should any one want to kill him?
“That’s a dandy argument,” Pee-wee said. “And it’s a dandy mystery too, because what became of the will?”
“That’s the question,” Mr. Bagley said.
“A will is no good just if you steal it or happen to find it,” Sandy said. “I can’t see why any one would want to get hold of it—except maybe those cousins.”
All of a sudden, Mr. Bagley stopped right short where we were in the woods and he looked straight at Pee-wee and said very slow and scary like, “That—will—is—still—in—Beaver Chasm.”
“Good night!” I said.
“Do you want us to find it?” Pee-wee piped up. “Those are just the kinds of things we’re supposed to do, because we’re scouts and we even find lost people sometimes—you look in the newspapers and see. And I bet if that will is down there we can find it, because anyway, I know a feller that lost a licorice jaw-breaker through a cellar grating in front of a grocery store in Bridgeboro where I live and because I told him to buy an ice cream cone instead and he wouldn’t so I said I’d get it from him because Scouts have to be out for service.”
“Sometimes they’re out for jaw-breakers,” Dub said.
Pee-wee went right on and he said, “I went in the store and so I could get on the right side of the grocery man I bought three bananas—”
“Talk about service!” Sandy said.
“Yes, continue,” I said, “and be sure to stop when you get to the end. We now have two bananas and the problem is which was the other one—”
“Are you going to let me tell Mr. Bagley or not?” the kid yelled at me.
I said, “Mr. Bagley, you must excuse our young hero, he was born during the famine in Hiawatha and that’s why he’s always eating Indian meal. His favorite fairy tale is Beauty and the Feast. When it comes to stalking a licorice jaw-breaker—”
Just then Mr. Bagley stopped and laid his hand on my shoulder and he said, “If you boys want a real hunt; if you want to make names for yourselves, now is your chance. And it’s no matter for joking.”
Jiminies, that made us all sober. Even I was sorry that I started kidding Pee-wee. I said, “Believe me, if there’s anything we can do to help you we’ll be only too glad to do it.”
“Sure, that’s our middle name,” Pee-wee said.
Mr. Bagley said, “And you’ll be helping yourselves too; you’ll be helping Temple Camp.”
“That’s us,” I said.
CHAPTER VII
BEAVER CHASM
Pretty soon we came to Beaver Chasm—it’s in the woods. Lots of times I saw it but I never went down in it. Once a couple of Scouts from camp told me there were rattlesnakes in it; I guess that was the reason. All the times I had been to it before I followed the brook from Black Lake. You can see how it goes on the map I made, not saying what kind of a map it is. I guess I’d get about six minus for it in school—I should worry. Anyway Beaver Chasm is a deep place that the brook flows through. That brook starts away off some place or other and goes west through the chasm, then south into Black Lake. It takes a west southerly course—gee, I remind myself of a geography lesson—that’s one study I have no use for.
Anyway you needn’t bother about the brook now so you can let it flow merrily, merrily, what care we—that’s in my school reader. Do you see where the arrows are pointing? Where it says Roy’s route and Through the woods? Well that’s the way the four of us went and you can see where we got becalmed near the Bagley’s Green railroad station, only the map doesn’t show where the wind went and anyway I don’t know how to make a picture of the wind.
After we started off with Mr. Bagley we went north up through the woods toward the chasm. I never went to it that way before. All the times I had gone to it I had gone in at the end of it like the brook does, I hope I make myself plain, that’s dandy language like a real author. You see where Bagley Center is? It’s about two miles north of the chasm. There are a lot of stores there and everything. It’s a flourishing met—something or other, only I don’t know how to spell it.
I don’t like maps any better than you do and there are only two more things about this one. Do you see how there’s a road going from Bagley Center to Catskill? You can’t see Catskill but anyway it’s off in that direction and you can get dandy big ice cream cones there in Schnizel’s Confectionery. But if you’re hiking from Catskill to Bagley Center there’s a short cut through the woods and for quite a ways you don’t have to bother with the road. I made a dotted line for that trail and it goes across Beaver Chasm on three or four logs side by side—some bridge! So now you know all about the country where we were going to have some adventures.
So now you have to answer questions. 1. Which way did Roy Blakeley and his four companions approach Beaver Chasm? Correct, be seated. 2. Which way can you take a short cut through the woods from Catskill to Bagley Center? Point out where the log bridge is? Then you can go home if you want to, I don’t care.
When we got to the chasm we were on the south side of it, and I can tell you one thing, that chasm is good and deep. The sides are pretty steep too—all rocks. When I looked down into it I saw that there wasn’t any brook at all, it was dried up Then I remembered how every one at camp was saying that the lake was very low that season. Uncle Jeb (he’s manager) said it was lower than he had ever seen it before. That was the first thing Pee-wee said to me; he said, “Oh, look how the brook isn’t there!”
I said, “Yes, I can see the brook, it isn’t there. No, we have plenty of bananas.”
We were standing right on the edge near the logs that go across. Dub and Sandy were seeing the chasm for the first time. They both said they never thought it was anything like that—so deep. I guess they were surprised.
Dub said, “Jumping jiminies, why didn’t you ever tell us about this place?” That’s the way it is with new fellows at Temple Camp.
But anyway the place even seemed different to me now on account of what I heard about it. Oh boy, did we listen! Mr. Bagley said that when they found his father in the chasm one of the logs was lying in the bottom of the chasm too; it was broken in halves. The old man must have been on his way back from Catskill and he was taking the short cut through the woods. While he was crossing on the logs one of them broke and he fell and was killed. Mr. Bagley pointed down to the very spot where they found his father. Then he pointed down to a lot of bushes and he said that was where they found his father’s coat. For a couple of minutes we all stood there just staring down into the chasm. Even Pee-wee didn’t say anything. When you know something happened in a place—like getting killed—that place seems kind of scary. And besides I had never looked down into it like that before. When you go in where the brook is, it doesn’t seem so deep and dark.
One of us asked Mr. Bagley if he had any idea how his father’s coat happened to be away from his body, because that seemed funny.
He said, “I have no more idea than the man in the moon. All I know is that when we lifted his coat off that clump of brush the oilskin container was not in any of the pockets. We know that he went to Catskill. We know that he signed his will and had it witnessed. We know that he started back. We found him the next day lying against that big rock down there. On the night that he met his death his two cousins, Caleb and Bertha Clemm, were in their home. I live with them there now. He is an old bachelor and she is an old maid. But I don’t hold that against them—I’m an old bachelor too. But I’ve had a roving career. Now you boys who are so clever, what do you make out of that mystery?”
“Jiminies,” I just gasped.
Sandy and Dub just shook their heads.
Pee-wee said, “Do you know what I bet? I bet that oilskin thing is down there, somewhere; I bet it’s there yet. And I bet we can find it.”
Mr. Bagley said, “My young friend, that is what I have thought for several years. I have searched this chasm many times. But I want you to notice one thing—the brook is dry. There are a hundred new places to search—dried up pools, crevices under rocks, places where I could only feel before, but which may now be seen. Well, I’ve brought you here and you are Boy Scouts. Here is an adventure for you.”
Pee-wee could hardly speak, he was so excited. He said, “And if we find it and you get all the property like that will says, do you cross your heart you’ll sell that woods over near the lake to Temple Camp? That’s only fair, so do you promise?”
Mr. Bagley just looked straight at him, then he shot out his hand and gave Pee-wee’s hand a good long shake. I had to laugh to look at Pee-wee standing there looking very important with his hand being shaken up and down. Then Mr. Bagley said, “A promise is a promise. And I think—you—boys—are—going—to—do—something—BIG.”
All of a sudden he dropped Pee-wee’s hand and started off through the woods. It was hot and he had his hat off and he was wiping his bald head with his handkerchief. I had to laugh, he looked so funny starting off that way. There was about as much hair on his head as there is on an egg.
“That’s right, laugh!” Pee-wee shouted good and mad. “That’s all the sense you’ve got—to laugh at somebody when they’re feeling bad! I suppose you’d stand here laughing if your father fell down and got killed in this chasm—you’ve always got a smirk on your face no matter what!”
I was just going to start kidding him along when Sandy said, “I think the man was starting to cry; gee, I feel sorry for him. I think he didn’t want us to see him and that’s why he started away so suddenly.”
We all stood there just looking down into the chasm and not saying anything. It looked pretty spooky. I’ll say that.
“Do you know what I think?” Dub said. “I think that’s one fine idea—about now being a good time to hunt on account of the brook being dry. Gee williger, we fellows have got the chance of our lives. Something big! Well, I’ll say so.”
“Jiminies,” I said, “I’m just beginning to see it.”
“Sure,” Pee-wee shouted at me. “After a new feller that was never at Temple Camp before begins to talk sober about it, then you sit up and listen. And when we find the wallet you’ll write it all up in a story and take all the credit. Even you’ll be more important than Mr. Bagley who will own the land and Mr. Temple who will buy the land—if we find the wallet. Do you know what we’re going to do?”
“Sure,” I said, “we’re going to sit down. Ask me another one.”
CHAPTER VIII
PLANS OF CAMPAIGN
Gee whiz, I can be sober when I have to. I could see all right enough that we had a chance to do something big. I wasn’t going to start fooling about it. I knew if old Mr. Bagley’s last will was in that chasm and we could find it, oh boy, there would be some excitement. His son would get all that land that Temple Camp wanted and he would sell it to Mr. Temple. You can see where we would fit in—oh boy! Talk about good turns!
“There are only two things bothering me,” I said.
“There are six things bothering me,” Dub said, “and all of them when are we going to eat and if so, what?”
“Those are the same twenty things that are bothering me,” Sandy said.
I said, “Pee-wee can’t even speak, he’s starving to death.”
All of a sudden the kid piped up, “The reason I don’t speak is because I’m disgusted—”
“Good,” I said, “I hope you’ll be disgusted for the rest of your life.”
“If I kept on going around with you I’d be disgusted twice at the same time,” he said.
“Fancy that,” I said to him. “If you don’t like going around with us, you can go my way and I’ll go yours.”
“You start out in the morning,” he shouted, “without any lunch and look where we are now, with no village anywhere around and nothing to eat.”
“Do you expect me to get a village and bring it here?” I asked him. “Is it my fault there isn’t any village here? Did I make the map of the Catskill Mountains? I’ll leave it to Dub. We’re having a fine hike with detours. What are you kicking about?”
“I can’t eat detours!” the kid shouted.
“Well you couldn’t eat a village either,” I said; “so what are you talking about?”
“Will you fellows listen?” Dub said. “For just two seconds will you listen? We’ve got a big chance, haven’t we? We’ve got a chance to do something that will knock Temple Camp off its feet. Suppose we can find that will! First will somebody please tell me what one of those dispatch containers is like. I’d like to know whether one would last all this while—whether it would be preserved.”
“If you’re talking about preserves,” I said, “you’d better ask Pee-wee. He knows all about preserves.”
“Are you going to be serious when there’s a real mystery or not?” the kid yelled. “Now we’ve got a chance to do something, are you going to have some sense or not? Are we going to get something to eat I don’t know how, and are we going to try to find that oilskin cover or whatever you call it, or are we just going to stay here talking crazy and acting like fools—which?”
“We are going to plan our campaign at once, ain’t it,” I told him. “The answer is no we do, by an unanimous minority.”
“Listen,” said Sandy, kind of sober like. “It’s noon-time and we thought that by this time we’d be at a village or some place or other. We’ve got a chance to do something big. Are we just going to fool around or what? I’d like to hunt for that thing, only we’ve got to have something to eat, that’s sure.”
“It’s even more than sure, it’s absolutely positive,” Pee-wee piped up.
I said, “All right then, listen—”
“Are you going to be serious?” Pee-wee shouted.
“Now listen,” I said, “and no more fooling. Hunting for that thing means work. You don’t think we can go down there and just pick it up, do you? All right then. How about eats? There are a lot of things to be considered if we’re going to do this and what we need first of all is a leader—”
“I thought you were going to say that,” Pee-wee shouted.
“You wanted me to be serious, didn’t you?” I said. “All right then, listen. I’m willing to hunt for that oilskin container, only if we do we’re going to do it right. We’re going to start out like Columbus did, only different.”
“There you go,” Pee-wee shouted.
“All right,” I said. “We’re at Beaver Chasm, aren’t we. And it’s time for lunch. We’re about two miles from Bagley Center and we’re about five miles from camp. How long can we hold out without eats?”
“Maybe five minutes,” Dub said.
“Maybe three at a pinch,” Sandy said.