CHAPTER XXX—WE SEE OUR FRIENDS

All the fellows said that was a good idea, and Grove said that if the trustees didn’t like the name of Robbers’ Cave, we would call the cabin, West Cabin, on account of Judge West. Pee-wee said the only good place left for a cabin at Temple Camp was on what we called East Hill, and if it was on East Hill, how could we call it West Cabin?

“Anyway, let’s get some breakfast,” I said.

So then Harry called up Judge West in Crystal Falls, and I guess Judge West must have been a pretty nice man, because Harry was laughing a lot while they were talking. You bet that fellow knows how to talk to anybody. Especially girls.

He said, “Well, it’s all right; I told the judge all about it and he’s strong for Robbers’ Cave—he says he likes that name best. He seems to think he’d like to visit Temple Camp some time.”

“What did you tell him?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

“I told him to bring his knitting and stay all day,” Harry said; “I told him he could be one of the judges in the pancake race.”

“What did he say?” he kid piped up, all excited.

“He said he’s crazy about pancakes,” Harry told us.

“Believe me, he isn’t any crazier than I am,” I said.

So that was what put the idea of pancakes into our heads, and we went into a funny little place in that village and had some dandy ones. When, you get started eating pancakes, it’s awful hard to stop. After that we started off again and by lunch time, we were in Watertown.

Skinny said, “I’m glad we’re in Watertown, because I want a drink of water.”

“I wish we’d get to Iceland, and then we’d get some ice cream,” I told him.

On the road maps they show you the best hotels—anyway, that’s what they call them. Believe me, if I ever make a road map, I’ll show Wessel’s in Watertown, because that’s where you get the ice-cream cones—oh, bibbie!

Now, this is my advice to you if you’re taking the road from Watertown to Steuben Junction—don’t. But if you take it, for goodness’ sake take it away altogether. Because it only gets in your way.

“It must have been awful in that flivver, coming along here,” Harry said.

“Anyway, you bet I’ll be glad to see Brent and those fellows,” I told him.

“I only hope we find them,” Harry said.

“I only hope we find the treasure,” Grove spoke up.

Harry said, “Yes, we’ll have to get on the job now and remember that we’re out for buried gold.”

It was fine going from Watertown to Steuben Junction, even if the road was bad. Because anyway, even if motoring is a lot of fun, that isn’t what scouts think most about. What they think most about is the woods. And we went through dandy woods. I was glad we had to go slow, because we like to be in the woods. Gee, that was one good thing about that road anyway—it went through the woods.

It was nice and dark in there and in some places you could only just see the sky through the trees. There were a lot of squirrels, too, in those woods. I like the red ones best. But you can’t tame a chipmunk. Squirrels you can. It reminded me of Temple Camp to hear the birds, because at Temple Camp that’s the first thing you hear mornings. Robins, gee, there are a lot of them up there. Right near our troop cabin there’s an elm with seven of them in it. One more and they’d be a full patrol.

Harry said, “Nice riding through here, hey?”

Grove said, “Listen to that noise.”

“It’s a tree-toad,” Pee-wee said; “don’t you know a tree-toad when you hear one?”

Harry stopped the car and we all listened. “Sounds like a baby,” that’s just what he said.

“It isn’t,” I told him; “it’s a tree-toad, all right. Do you know why he calls like that? It’s to let the birds know to get out of the tree, because it belongs to him.”

“Some nerve,” Grove said.

Harry just sat there listening, awful interested like. Then he said, “Well, I suppose it belongs to him as much as to any one else. How would you like to get a shot at him?”

“He should worry,” I said; “scouts aren’t supposed to kill things.”

Harry just kind of kept humming and listening.

I said, “You’ve had a lot of adventures, that’s one sure thing, but do you like to kill things?”

“I’ve killed a lot of time in my life,” he said.

“Time isn’t alive,” Skinny piped up; “animals are alive.”

“So are trees if it comes to that,” I said.

Harry just kind of sat there for about half a minute, leaning his arms on the steering wheel and looking all around in the woods. I guess he was kind of dreaming like.

All of a sudden he said, “Well, this isn’t hunting for buried treasure is it? No scout rule against that, is there?”

“Believe me, buried treasure is our favorite nickname,” I told him.

“Nice and quiet in here,” he said; “I hate to hit into open country. Look at that old oak; be a pretty rich tree-toad that owns that chunk of real estate, hey?”

All of a sudden little Alf piped up, in that funny way he has. He said, “Trees are friends, that’s what it says in the scout book.”

He meant the handbook. I guess his speaking up like that kind of, you know, roused us up out of our dreaming. Anyway, Harry said, “Guess you’re right, Alf old boy.” Then we started along.

CHAPTER XXXI—WE RECEIVE DARK TIDINGS

After a little while, Pee-wee shouted, “Oh, I see Steuben Junction! I see a house!”

“That’s it,” I told him; “I knew there was a house in Steuben Junction.”

“Do you see the white house?” he yelled.

“Sure, I can even see the President sitting in one of the windows,” Grove said; “it’s the White House all right.”

“I see it,” Alf said.

“Sure, right in among the trees,” I told him; “it’s a kind of a light shade of white.”

Harry said, “Well, we seem to be approaching the desert island. Now for the bags of gold.”

“I’m going to buy a wireless outfit with my share,” Pee-wee said.

“I’m going to buy a bicycle with mine,” Alf said; “I’m going to get one painted green.”

“I think I’ll get a pound of sugar with my share,” I said.

Grove said he was going to get a camping kit. Harry said that maybe he’d get an egg with his share, and if he had any left, he’d donate it to the poor starving garage keepers. He said, “So you see, there’s a couple of billion dollars spent already. We’ve been very extravagant. I’m sorry we spent it all before we got it.”

Pee-wee said, “The time for us to dig up that treasure is at night—in the darkness.”

“In the which?” Harry asked him.

“In the dead of night,” Pee-wee said; “that’s the way Captain Kidd used to do.”

Harry said, “I don’t think the night is likely to be very dead with this bunch around. It might get sick though.”

“Good night, I wouldn’t blame it if it did,” I told him.

“We’ll make torches, hey?” Pee-wee said, all excited.

“Have we got anything to strain the gold in?” Harry asked. “You’re the property man, Pee-wee.”

“I got the coffee strainer from the kitchen,” the kid said; “I brought a rolling-pin, too. Because you know sometimes they roll gold.”

“You should have brought a couple of dishes along, in case we should want to plate it,” Harry said, all the while laughing. I guess you know by this time that we were all crazy—not exactly crazy, but insane. We should worry.

Steuben Junction was about as big as New York. I mean New York before Columbus landed. It was so big, you could have it sent home C. O. D., but anyway, there was a nice man there; he was the man that kept the station. He gave us a letter that Brent Gaylong had left with him—gee whiz, it sounded just like Brent.

This is what it said, because I kept it:

When we had read the letter, Harry said, “The plot grows thicker; we haven’t a minute to spare. We must moor our ship and be on the trail. I wonder where that stationery store is. I think that Brent has not told us all. You’d better keep your hand on that rolling-pin, Scout Harris, and hang onto that coffee strainer, in case we should want to sift any evidence.”

CHAPTER XXXII—WE HIT THE TRAIL

I guess we were all pretty excited on account of at last being right up in the neighborhood of that treasure, and near the very place where the train with that old car of ours was held up.

Anyway, you would have said we meant business if you had see Pee-wee unloading the auto in that shed behind the stationery store. Brent’s car was in there, too. Our young hero had two shovels and a pickaxe and a couple of big burlap bags, and he looked like a striking miner as he trudged up the road with all that junk over his shoulders. Pretty soon we took some of the things from him. But he kept the rolling-pin and a big saucepan; hanged if I know what the saucepan was for.

We had a couple of scout belt-axes along, but no camping stuff, because we hadn’t thought that we’d stay up there very long.

Pretty soon we hit into the railroad tracks and followed them north. I guess the people who saw us thought we were crazy. Harry said Pee-wee looked like Don Quixote, with all that junk hanging from him.

Harry said, “It will be easy to find Brent’s sign and to follow his blazing in the woods, but how are we going to find out where the hold-up occurred? That’s the question.”

“We’re going to hunt for a tree like the one we have a description of,” Grove said.

“That seems about the only thing to do,” Harry said; “the tracks aren’t going to tell us anything.”

Steuben Junction was in a kind of opening in the woods; it was like a little village in a clearing, sort of. Part of those woods we had come through in the auto. In the part where the tracks ran north of the village the woods were awful thick and were right up close to the tracks on both sides. It was a single track road.

We knew that Brent didn’t know anything except just what we had told him about that big balsam poplar, and we thought that he wouldn’t have bothered his head about that in looking for a good place to camp. We thought he’d just wait for us.

When we had gone a little distance from the village, we divided into two parties, and each kept in the woods a little way off from the tracks, one party on the west side and the other party on the east side.

Harry said, “Well, there’s one good sign and that is that none of the trees in this woods are poplars, except a few dead ones. What we have to do is to hunt for a big, tall, husky stranger. That old giant of the north doesn’t die as easily as most of the poplar family.”

“That’s a good name for it,” I said; “the Giant of the North.”

“Maybe even if one grew it would be dead by now,” Grove said.

“Even still we might find it,” Harry said.

“Would it stand up if it got dead?” Skinny wanted to know.

“If there’s one here it won’t be dead,” Harry said; “he’s a pretty old customer, that tree; old ‘Rough and Ready.’ Only it’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack.”

Grove said, “I wish we could reduce the area of search.” Isn’t that a peach of a sentence? Believe me, he’s some highbrow, Grove is.

All of a sudden, Pee-wee stopped short. Gee whiz, I thought he had found the treasure.

“Break it to us gently,” I said.

“I know how to reduce the area of search!” he shouted.

“All right, go ahead and reduce it,” Harry told him.

“Listen—all listen!” the kid said. “I have a—you know—one of those things——”

“An inspiration?” Grove asked him.

“We don’t need to hunt on both sides of the track,” the kid shouted, “because I can do a deduction—a good one. Do you remember that bullet hole in the side of the car? If the bullet came through there and hit that man Thor, then he must have been riding with the seat frontways, and if that seat was frontways on a train going south, it means he must have been on the left side of the car. We don’t need to bother about looking in the woods on the other side of the track at all. All come over on this side. I reduced the airplane of search—I mean the area.”

For about half a minute, Harry just stood there thinking, and then he said, “I’m hanged if you’re not right, Pee-wee. How did you happen to evolve that in your noodle? You’re a bully little scout.” Then he said, “I’ve often noticed that if a fellow is a scout, he’s a scout more than he is anything else. He may be a motor-boatist or a motorist or a tennis player, he may be a catcher or a pitcher or a sodalogist——”

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“An ice-cream soda specialist,” he said. “But when it comes to a showdown, a scout is just a scout and that’s all there is to it. Am I right?”

“Thou never spakest a truer word,” I told him. “Being a scout is like a 1916 Ford—you never can get rid of it.”

“That’s the idea,” Harry said; “a scout’s a scout and there you are.”

“He’s a friend to everything that lives,” little Alf sang out; “it says so in the book.”

“That’s what he is, Alf,” Harry said.

So then we all kept to the one side of the track, and we were saved a lot of trouble by Pee-wee’s deduction. The kid is sure great on deduction—and movies. And his favorite hero is apple pie. Gee williger, I guess we could pretty near feed Austria with the war tax he pays down at the Lyric Theatre. Harry says if Pee-wee were to stop eating, the price of everything would go down. Anyway, he controls the wheat market—eating nine wheat cakes at a sitting. But he’s great on deduction.

One thing, Harry was sure right when he said that when it comes to a showdown a scout is a scout—I have to admit it. Anyway, it seemed kind of natural like, to be walking through those woods; it seemed just like at Temple Camp. You wouldn’t have known there was a village within a couple of hundred miles. Gee, I’m not saying anything against the Cadillac, but I like to hike; I’d rather hike than ride in a machine. I guess that’s because I’m a scout, hey? Especially I like hiking through the woods. Sitting on a porch, that’s one thing I hate. I hate algebra, too. My father says it’s good to know algebra, even if you don’t want to be especially good friends with it. I’ll let it alone if it’ll let me alone—that’s what I told him. Anyway, it was dandy in those Woods.

CHAPTER XXXIII—WE MEET A FRIEND

Pretty soon we saw a stick stuck in the ground near the track on our side. It was split a little way down and another stick was crossways in it. One end was peeled and it meant that we should go the way that pointed. That’s a scout sign, If you ever see one like that, go where it points and maybe you’ll get something to eat.

But anyway, we didn’t have to go far, for almost right away we heard a voice, and it was Brent’s. They had their tent up quite near the tracks and we saw it almost as soon as we saw the stick.

It was a peachy place for a camp. Brent was sitting on a rock, making some kind of a birch-bark thing, and those kids were sitting around him. Cracky, they were all crazy about that fellow.

Little Willie Wide-Awake piped up, “Oh, here they are! Here they are!”

Harry said, “Hello, you old grouch; we got your letter. Hello, kids; well, here we are at last, after many ups and downs and thrilling adventures.”

“When it comes to ups and downs, you haven’t got anything on us,” Brent said; “did you come up that road through the woods? We were hoping you wouldn’t find us so easily.”

“If you were any nearer the track, you’d get run over,” Harry said.

Brent said, “We were hoping you’d search for days and days and not find us, and then just as you were starving—just as Pee-wee was breathing his last—little Bill here, would come and place a gum drop between his emaciated lips. Everything seems to go wrong on this trip.”

“Same old Brent,” Harry said; “well, here we are, ready to search for the treasure.”

“It’s all over except the shouting,” Brent said.

“You don’t mean you’ve found it?” Pee-wee piped up.

“Take a good look at this tree,” Brent said; “come off here a little distance where you can see it.”

We all went about twenty feet from the tree and took a good look at it.

“What do you say?” Brent said.

Oh, boy, I had never seen another tree like that in all my life. Most of the trees around there were birches, and it stood there among them just like a great big giant. I guess the trunk of that tree was four or five feet thick. Away up high, oh, about a hundred feet I guess, it went to a point. There weren’t any other trees around there anything like it, or anywhere near as big. Away up high near its top it was all kind of gold color, because the sun was beginning to go down. It seemed sort of, as if it paid attention to that great big tree first of all, because it was so grand.

“It’s a poplar, all right,” Harry said, sort of low, because I guess we all felt kind of serious to see it standing there. We knew we were going to hunt for such a tree, and we thought there was a pretty fair chance of there being one somewhere around there. But now that we all stood there looking at it, we just couldn’t speak, exactly. I noticed even Pee-wee, just standing there gaping. One thing sure, that great big tree was a stranger in those woods. It seemed proud, but kind of lonely there. Especially when you looked away up high at it, it seemed lonely.

Harry just stood there looking at it, and shaking his head. “Some—old—giant,” that’s all he said.

“It’s got plenty of gold up on top,” Brent-said; “now it remains to be seen if there’s any gold down underneath—real, honest to goodness, gold. Anyhow, this is where the desperate deed was did. Come over here till I show you something.”

Just as we were all starting to walk over to the tracks, I saw a bird—a big dark one—flying toward the top of that tree. All of a sudden when he got near it, he seemed to change to gold color. Then he went in among the branches and I couldn’t see him. I told Harry and he said, “We’re in an atmosphere of gold—everything is gold around here, even the sky. Look at that squirrel coming down to size us up. Kids, our fortunes are made—that’s a balsam poplar, and I’ll bet a doughnut, there’s as much real gold underneath it as there is gold light up on top. The seed of that tree pushed its way up out of a bag of gold, and Alf gets his bicycle. We’ve hit it rich! What do you say, Roy?”

Gee whiz, I could hardly tell what he was saying, because I was watching that squirrel. He came half way down the trunk and just stopped there upside down, looking at us. And he looked at the tent, too, as if he didn’t know what to make of it. And then he cocked his head sideways, just as if he was listening to Harry.

“Got your shovels and your axes all ready?” that’s what Harry was saying.

CHAPTER XXXIV—WE CAMP UNDER THE TREE

Brent led the way over to the railroad tracks, then he began poking his foot against the big spikes that hold the tracks down on the ties.

He said, “See there? What do you make of that, Sherlock Holmes?”

Harry said, “I don’t see anything unusual. What’s the matter?”

Brent went back along the track a little way and began walking along the ties. “There’s a spike, there’s another, there’s another, there’s another,” he kept saying, “and here’s another—with a different kind of a head. Notice? More square—see?” He kept walking along. “Now there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight” and he kept walking along and counting up to about eleven or twelve “of those square headed spikes. See? They’re different from the others and they were driven in after the others. Can’t foil the old Newburgh Sleuth. This is where the train was derailed.

“The way I see it is, those robbers ripped up the tracks for about ten or fifteen feet and set the ends apart and spread some leaves over the break. When the railroad people spiked the rail down again, they just happened to use spikes with heads of a little different shape. Then there was a lapse of twenty-five years—that’s what they usually call it, isn’t it, Pee-wee?—and, presto, along came the Boy Scouts. Nothing to it. Right here is where that hold-up occurred—you can take it from the Church Mice Patrol. Flowers and testimonials should be addressed to First B. S. Troop, Newburgh and sent prepaid.”

I just blurted out, “Brent, you’re a wonder!”

“You’re some scout,” Grove said.

Harry just kept shaking his head and then he said, “Brent, we’ve got to hand it to you fellows. Pee-wee did a pretty good little stunt in deduction himself, and the fact that these spikes are on the left side bears out what he said.”

Then he told Brent about what Pee-wee had said, and Brent said, “Well, it seems we haven’t got anything on Scout Harris, when it comes to deducing.”

“Did you hunt for the tree?” Harry asked him.

Brent said, “No, because we weren’t sure of there being any tree; and you weren’t either. We came up the track hunting for signs of a derailed train, and we found them. It was as easy as pie.”

“Some pie isn’t so easy,” Willie Wide-Awake said.

Brent said, “Alas, ’tis true!” in that funny way he has. I guess little Bill had had some experience, hey?

“Now come back to the tent and I’ll show you something else,” Brent said; “we found it in the bushes when we were collecting firewood. How about you? Are you game for camp-fire to-night?”

“You bet we are,” I said; “I’d rather have a camp-fire any day than an auto trip.”

“You mean any night,” Skinny spoke up.

“Isn’t he getting just too clever for anything!” Grove said.

We went back to the tent under that great big tree, and Brent got out an old bar of iron with a flat end. It was all rusty and the rust had eaten into it so that Brent just pulled it against his knee and bent it. He said, “That’s what they did the trick with. Seems funny, doesn’t it, to find that after all these years?”

“You bet it does,” I said.

“Wonder just what happened here, hey?” he said.

We all sat down around outside the tent and it was awful nice there. It was just beginning to get dark. That gold colored place up at the point of the tree was kind of turned to brown. It was awful quiet all around. It was so still that I could hear something fall out of the tree and hit the ground. When I picked it up, I found it was just an acorn. I guess maybe it belonged to that squirrel.

“I like it under here,” Skinny said; “I like it better than being in a house.”

Harry took out the big envelope that had those secret papers (that’s what Pee-wee called them) in it; and he just kind of glanced them over. He read the newspaper articles and Brent listened. Then he said, “Let’s see—oh, this is about the tree. We called it the Dahadinee poplar, because that’s what old what’s-his-name called it. I can hardly see, it’s getting dark so fast … ‘trunk diameter of five or six feet … irregular, pyramidal open top … as moved by the wind … makes a handsome object….’ Some old tree, huh?”

“It’s a peach of a tree,” Brent said.

Then for a little while none of us said anything. Gee, I don’t know what we were all thinking about. Brent just held that old piece of bent, rusty iron, and kept marking in the ground with it. I know I was thinking about how funny it was, that away back years and years ago a robber should bury two bags of gold that had some seeds in them, and that a great big tree like this should grow up over the very place, just like we thought. A big tree that didn’t belong there—that belonged away up in the north. I guess I must have been sort of dreaming, because all of a sudden, I knew Harry was reading from that old letter that Pee-wee had found in the car. They were all listening, while he skimmed over it.

“‘So … have lost all I have by this outrage of scoundrels … but I paid him in good measure … Watertown to care for dying … say I am rough diamond but human life sacred even more than gold…. So I will come back to you and home with no riches for all this work but much love which no scoundrel can steal. The best reason I would pay this scoundrel … in one of these bags … for you to plant … nuthing but an adventure. I think more about how we can’t have our bench under our Dahadinee poplar ... with much love … Thor.’

“Pretty good letter, hey?” Harry said. “Who do you suppose he was?”

Brent just shook his head. Then he said, “He was a rough and ready old scout with a heart as big as a ham. When it came to a showdown, he cared more about a tree for he and his precious Ann to sit under, than he did for a couple of bags of gold dust. He was one lollapazuzza!”

Harry just said, “When it came to a showdown.”

“Probably on his way back from the Klondike, hey?” Brent said. “Lots of them came down across Canada. Maybe he and Ann lived up along the Dahadinee River when they were kids.”

“No telling,” Harry said.

Then nobody said anything, except Grove said we had better be starting our fire.

“And he was bringing these seeds home to her,” Harry said, very quiet, “so they would grow up and they could have some kind of a tree at home—— Oh, I think he was just splendid!”

I knew he was just imitating Grace Bronson.

All of a sudden he jumped up and said, “Let’s have one of those shovels. Pee-wee, and I’ll make a dig—just for a tryout. Then we’ll get down to business in the morning.”

Pee-wee got up kind of slow and got a shovel out of the tent and handed it to Harry.

“Of course, we’ll have to chop the whole business down to-morrow,” Harry said, “and dig in around the roots.”

“The gold dust will be pretty well mixed up with the earth right plunk under the tree. It’ll be pretty hard to get at. But there are plenty of us to do the work and we’re all scouts—except me. We’re not afraid of work. We’ve got a wireless outfit to get, and a bicycle painted green. Are you all game for a hard day’s work to-morrow?”

Brent was sitting there on the ground with his knees drawn up and he just said, “We’re all scouts when it comes to a showdown.”

“Righto,” Harry said; “when it comes to a showdown.”

CHAPTER XXXV—IT COMES TO A SHOWDOWN

Maybe you’ll say we were all crazy, but I should worry. Anyway, I’m going to tell you everything, just the way it happened.

While the rest of us were starting our camp-fire, Harry was digging up spades full of earth as close to the trunk of the tree as he could get the spade. Each time he would spread the earth out on the spade and examine it very carefully by the light of the fire.

“You’re a swell lot of treasure hunters,” he said; “leaving all the work to me.”

“Wait till we get the fire burning up and we’ll give you a hand,” Brent said.

“That’s the best kind of gold,” little Bill spoke up; “that yellow flame.”

“It turns everything to gold all of a sudden,” even Pee-wee said; “look at the trunk of the tree.”

“Some bunch of treasure hunters!” Harry said. “Pee-wee, I’m surprised at you. Where are your pan and your rolling-pin and your burlap bags? I thought you were Captain Kidd, Junior.”

“It’s time enough in the morning, isn’t it?” the kid said. “Then we’ll get to work in earnest. We have to get our fire started, don’t we?”

“Oh, sure,” Harry said.

“We belong to the Union,” Brent said, “and we don’t shovel dirt after three in the afternoon. We believe in the two hour day. Don’t bother us.”

Pretty soon the fire was burning up, and it made the tree all bright—kind of flickery, like. We could look away into the dark woods—they were awful black. But right near us it was bright, just like gold. There was an owl hooting some-where—maybe he was up in that tree.

We all sat down around the fire to rest a minute. Harry pulled a log over close to the big trunk of the tree and out of the heat of the fire and sat down on it, and leaned back against the trunk. He said, “I guess I’ll have my bench under the Dahadinee poplar. Look here, you fellows.”

He held out his hand and in the middle of the palm was just a little yellow dust.

“It’s gold!” Pee-wee shouted.

Brent said, “Yellow gold, by gum!”

We all just stood around him, looking at it; gee whiz, I just couldn’t take my eyes off it.

“There’s a clincher for you,” Harry said; “the treasure is here all right. All we have to use is some elbow grease to get it. You see we’ll have to chop her down first, because if we go to undermining her, she may fall. Then all we’ll have to do is to dig around among the upper roots, and keep our eyes open, and scrape up the dust. We won’t get anywhere near as much as was here, but we’ll get enough to buy some wireless outfits and bicycles and things,—or I’m mistaken. Of course, the bags must have rotted away years ago. Put some wood on the fire, Grove.”

“It shows how much those seeds wanted to live to push right up through those bags,” Pee-wee said.

Harry said, “I declare! Listen to Pirate Harris!”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” Pee-wee said. It was awful funny.

“Oh, sure, they wanted to live all right,” Harry said; “a lot they cared about gold. A scout is a friend to gold——”

“He’s a friend to everything that lives,” little Alf spoke up.

Brent Gaylong went over and put some wood on the fire and the blaze jumped up, and everything around there was all flickered up and bright. Then he lay down on his back and put one knee up over the other and looked up into the sky. That’s always the way he does when he’s around camp-fire.

After about a minute he said, “Scouts, I have an idea. This trip is a failure—it’s commonplace. We’ve been trying to get some originality and pep into our travels and we haven’t succeeded. We planned an escape from jail and it fell through. We weren’t even sent to jail; I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s the truth. You fellows were on the point of being sent to jail and then, just when everything was going nicely and you seemed likely to have an adventure, along came some old judge and put one over on you—gave you a check for five hundred bucks. It’s discouraging.”

Harry said, “I know it,”—awful funny.

Then Brent said, “Every story I ever read about going after buried treasure, the men who went after it found it. I was in hopes our little story might have a different ending—just for the sake or originality. But nothing doing; it seems we’re going to go home loaded down with gold.”

“I know it,” Harry said; “I’m sorry. I kind of like this bench under the Dahadinee poplar; it makes me think of old Thor or whatever his name was, and Ann.”

For about a minute nobody said anything; we just sprawled around watching the fire. The big tree stood there, you know, kind of dignified and solemn like.

“What time shall we start chopping and digging?” Brent asked.

But nobody said anything. Then, good night, Pee-wee Harris, Captain Kidd, Jr., spoke up.

“What’s the good of gold, anyway?” he said. “We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?”

“How about the rolling-pin and the burlap bags and the pickaxe and the shovels?” Harry said.

“We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?” Pee-wee shouted at him. “Alf is right.”

“Right?” Harry said.

“Yes, right; that’s what I said,” the kid yelled: “a scout cares about everything that lives. If you were a scout, you’d know that.”

“I?” Harry said.

“Yes, you,” Pee-wee shouted; “I’m not going to help chop down this big tree just to get some gold dust. If you think we’re a gold dust troop, you’re mistaken! We’re scouts, that’s what we are!”

“Goodness me,” Harry said; “you seem to be on the side of the girls now. You and Ann and Grace Bronson——”

“Girls are all right,” Pee-wee shouted; “I know all about girls; I know more about them than you do!”

“I don’t claim to know anything about them,” Harry said; “and I don’t claim to know anything about the scouts, either. I think they’re all crazy.”

“I don’t mind being called crazy,” Grove said.

Harry said, “So, you’re with him, hey?”

“Yes, and I’m with him, too,” I said.

“So am I,” Skinny shouted.

“If it rained this tree would keep us dry,” one of Brent’s patrol spoke up.

“I like trees best,” little Willie Wide-Awake piped up.

“It seems there’s a mutiny,” Harry said.

Brent said, “That was more than I dared to hope for. I’ve always longed to be mixed up in a mutiny. I’ll be the leader of this one.”

“Well,” Harry said, “all I know is, that we formed this party to come up here after buried treasure, and that we came equipped with rolling-pins and saucepans and pickaxes, and now it seems we’re talking about trees. You’re a queer lot, you scouts.”

I said, “Yes, and you feel just the same as we do, too. You try to make me think you don’t agree with Grace Bronson.”

Harry and Brent just looked at each other and laughed.

Then Harry said, “Well, girls and scouts, they’re a mystery to me. I’m here for business, but, of course, if there’s a mutiny——”

“Let’s take a vote,” Grove said.

“All right,” Pee-wee shouted; “I vote to leave this tree where it is. We had plenty of fun.”

“I vote to have some eats,” I said.

“Second the motion,” one of Brent’s scouts spoke up. Believe me, a scout is a friend of eats.

“You won’t get me to help chop it down,” Grove said.

“I’ll stick up for you,” Willie Wide-Awake sang out.

“I seem to have a large minority,” Harry said; “how about you, Brent?”

Brent said, “Oh, I vote for the original ending. I’m a friend to everything that’s different. I say, let’s not find the treasure—let’s beat the story books at their own game. If Roy ever writes up all this nonsense, why the readers will think that we’re all going to end up millionaires.”

“They’ll get left,” Pee-wee said; “we’re just plain scouts. It—it came to a showdown.”

Harry said, “Well, it seems as if the old Dahadinee poplar wins. I think I’ll leave this bench right here underneath it, in memory of Thor and Ann.”

“And Grace Bronson,” I said.

“Put some more sticks on the fire, Roy, and we’ll take a full vote,” Harry said, all the while smiling. I always kid him about Grace Bronson whenever I get a chance.

“Think she’ll be satisfied?” Harry said.

Just as I was putting some more sticks on the fire I happened to look up where the trunk of the big tree was all kind of gold color, on account of the camp-fire blaze. That’s the kind of gold that scouts like best. And right there in the light, about half way down the trunk was that squirrel, standing upside-down, and cocking his head sideways at Harry Donnelle, just as if he were waiting to find out how we decided.

THE END

This Isn't All!

Don’t throw away the Wrapper

In the character and adventures of Roy Blakeley are typified the very essence of Boy life. He is a real boy, as real as Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. He is the moving spirit of the troop of Scouts of which he is a member, and the average boy has to go only a little way in the first book before Roy is the best friend he ever had, and he is willing to part with his best treasure to get the next book in the series.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK

All readers of the Tom Slade and the Roy Blakeley books are acquainted with Pee-wee Harris, These stories record the true facts concerning his size (what there is of it) and his heroism (such as it is), his voice, his clothes, his appetite, his friends, his enemies, his victims. Together with the thrilling narrative of how he foiled, baffled, circumvented and triumphed over everything and everybody (except where he failed) and how even when he failed he succeeded. The whole recorded in a series of screams and told with neither muffler nor cut-out.