Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike Part 1

Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike.

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh.

CHAPTER I

WE LOSE A MEMBER

Now I'm going to tell you about the bee-line hike. Maybe you'll say you don't believe everything I tell you about it, but one thing sure, it's a straight story. It wasn't so long, that hike, but--_oh, boy!_

Now the first thing I have to do in this story is to get rid of Charlie Seabury. That's easy. Then the next thing I have to do is to tell you about Pee-wee Harris. Gee whiz, I wish we could get rid of him. That kid belongs in the Raven Patrol and when those fellows went up to Temple Camp they wished him on us for the summer. They said it was a good turn.

Can you beat that? I suppose we've got to take him up to camp with us when we go. Anyway the crowd up there will have some peace in the meantime, so _we're_ doing a good turn, that's what I said.

So this story is just about my own patrol and Pee-wee Harris, and some buildings and a couple of valleys and a hill and some pie, and a forest and some ice cream cones and a big tree and a back yard and a woman and a ghost and a couple of girls and ten cents' worth of peanut brittle.

It's about a college, too. Maybe you think we're not very smart on account of being kind of crazy, but anyway we went through college in ten minutes. So you can see from that how bright we are. That's why we call ourselves the Silver Foxes.

Now Charlie Seabury (he has seven merit badges) has a grandfather who lives out near the Mississippi and his grandfather asked him to go out there and spend the summer. No wonder they call that man grand.

Charlie came to me because I'm patrol leader, and he said, "Shall I go out there and spend the summer?"

I said, "Sure, you might as well. If you hang around here all you'll spend is nickels."

He said, "But when you start up for camp you'll want a full patrol, won't you? You can't count Pee-wee in the Silver Foxes."

"Talk of something pleasant," I told him. "You go ahead out west and leave the patrol to us. We'll find a new member and when you come back in the Fall you can start the new patrol that Mr. Ellsworth is always talking about."

He said, "Good idea; what shall we call it?"

"Call it the police patrol or whatever you want to, I don't care," I told him.

He said, "Well, I guess I'll go. My grandfather has a big apple orchard and everything, and I can go swimming in the Mississippi. I'll write to you."

"How is that going to get me any apples?" I asked him. "Go ahead, the sooner the quicker, and I'll have fewer Silver Foxes to worry about. Let your grandfather worry for a while."

So that's the end of Charlie Seabury in this story. We lost a scout and his grandfather lost an apple orchard. I should worry. Maybe, later, you'll hear about the Laughing Hyenas that he started. But believe me, there are laughs enough in this story without bothering our heads about that new outfit.

CHAPTER II

MISSIONARY WORK

We had about two weeks to hang around Bridgeboro (that's where we live) before starting for Temple Camp. If you want to know why we stayed behind when the Ravens and the Elks went, you'd better read the story that comes before this one. That will tell you how our young hero, the raving raven of the Ravens, happened to be wished on us, too.

Now a couple of days after Charlie Seabury started out west two or three of us were sitting in the swinging seat on my porch talking about what we'd do to kill time for a couple of weeks.

"What's the matter with killing Pee-wee?" Westy wanted to know.

I said, "Speak of angels and you'll hear the flutter of their wings; here he comes up the hill."

"What's he eating?" Dorry Benton asked.

"I think it's peanuts," Hunt Manners said.

Pretty soon the little angel eating peanuts crossed the road and cut up across the lawn. He's always cutting up in some way or other.

"For goodness' sake, look at him," I said; "he's a walking junk shop. We could sell him for old metal."

Honest, I had to laugh. That kid looked like a Christmas tree. He was wearing his belt-axe and it looked as if it weighed a ton the way it dragged his belt down. In front he had his scout jack-knife dangling from his belt and his big nickel-plated compa.s.s hanging by a cord around his neck. He had all his badges on, and besides he had his aluminum cooking set hanging by a strap from his shoulder. He had his brown scarf on too, he didn't care how hot it was. The reason the Ravens chose brown for their color is because they're all nuts in that patrol. He had his scout staff with the Raven pennant on it and he was jabbing it into the ground as he came along.

Westy said, "What's this? A traveling hardware store?"

Dorry said, "Are you starting off on a crusade, Kid? Where's your steel armor? What's the large idea? Have the Germans invaded Bridgeboro?"

I was laughing so hard I could hardly speak. The kid looked like that picture in the handbook that shows just how to wear the medals and things.

"What's this? A coffee-pot?" Ralph Warner asked him. "You must be going to join the Cook's Tours with all your cooking things. What's the big idea of all the exterior decorations?"

"I'm a delegation," Pee-wee said.

"A what?" I asked him.

"Don't you know what a missionary is?" he shot back at me.

"Good night! Pity the poor heathens," I said. "So that's what you've got the compa.s.s for! You're going to China? Break it to us gently. You sound like a Ford when you walk."

"You think you're smart, don't you?" he shouted. "I was out doing a good turn, so there. I was out doing a good turn for your patrol. I was trying to get you a new member. When you go after new members you've got to look like a scout, haven't you? You've got to show them what scouting is, so they'll _see_. Everybody knows that. Didn't you ever hear that it takes a scout to catch a scout?"

"You couldn't catch a snail with all that junk hanging on you," I told him. "Who did you try to catch?"

"Warde Hollister," he shouted.

_Good night_, we all began to laugh.

"Warde Hollister?" I said. "You couldn't catch that fellow with a la.s.so.

He loves the wild and woolly front porch too much. You stand a tall chance of getting Warde Hollister into the scouts. You're wasting your time, Kiddo. What did he tell you?"

"He said he has something better to do with himself," Pee-wee said.

"There you go," Dorry told him; "that's him all over. Why should he join the Silver Foxes when he can shoot buffaloes and Indians and hunt train robbers and kidnap maidens and dig up buried treasure?"

"Where can he do that?" Pee-wee wanted to know.

"Right in the public library," I told him, "division B, second shelf from the top. That's a dangerous place, that is; I've known fellows to get killed in there. There used to be a kid that lived on Willow Place and he got drowned in a sea story in there."

"What are you talking about?" Pee-wee screamed. He always gets excited when we jolly him.