[Illustration: 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
I. Here We Are
II. Kerflop
III. The Big Four
IV. The Quitter
V. The Stranger
VI. Where There’s a Will
VII. Beaver Chasm
VIII. Plans of Campaign
IX. Hercules Harris
X. The Distant Flicker
XI. In The Dark
XII. The Reward
XIII. It Is to Laugh
XIV. Honors and Awards
XV. The Hero Maker
XVI. Reel Heroes
XVII. Talk Is Cheap
XVIII. Waiting
XIX. The Fixer
XX. The Full Salute
XXI. The Lake Trail
XXII. Sounds in the Night
XXIII. The Other Fellow
XXIV. Safe
XXV. Being a Scout
XXVI. The Day Before
XXVII. The Last Hike
XXVIII. Follow Your Leader
XXIX. The Distant Whistle
XXX. The North Bound
XXXI. Held
XXXII. Better Than Gold
[Illustration: (map to accompany) 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.