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[Illustration: A LITTLE DOG SCOOTED BETWEEN PEE-WEE'S LEGS.
_Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels._ _Page 53_]
ROY BLAKELEY'S
CAMP ON WHEELS
BY
PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
_Author of_
TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT, TOM SLADE WITH THE COLORS,
TOM SLADE WITH THE FLYING CORPS,
ROY BLAKELEY, ETC.
Illustrated by
HOWARD L. HASTINGS
Published with the approval of
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BREWSTER'S CENTER 1
II THE HOUSING PROBLEM 5
III "A WIDE-AWAKE LOT" 11
IV A WILD NIGHT 17
V SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA 21
VI THE BIG B 30
VII ON TO SKIDDYUNK 34
VIII LABOR TROUBLES 38
IX SANDWICHES 45
X SCOUT HARRIS 51
XI WE MEET THE CHEERFUL IDIOT 59
XII ON THE SCREEN 64
XIII AN INVITATION 70
XIV PEE-WEE ON SCOUTING 75
XV TO THE RESCUE 81
XVI UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 87
XVII A WILD-CAT RIDE 92
XVIII THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 100
XIX WESTY 107
XX TAKING IT EASY 112
XXI THE SHERIFF ARRIVES 118
XXII RAILROADING 123
XXIII CRAZY STUFF 127
XXIV UP IN THE AIR 132
XXV IN THE DARK 137
XXVI WALTER HARRIS, SCOUT 144
XXVII "POTS" 150
XXVIII "SEEN IN THE MOVIES" 154
XXIX "FOILED" 159
XXX OUR PATROL "SING" 166
XXXI FLIMDUNK SIDING 170
XXXII EXPLORING 177
XXXIII OUR YOUNG HERO 181
XXXIV THE TRAIN 186
XXXV THE PROFITEERS 190
XXXVI A FRIEND IN NEED 200
XXXVII TENDERFLOPS AND OTHER FLOPS 206
XXXVIII ALL ABOARD 213
ROY BLAKELEY'S
CAMP ON WHEELS
CHAPTER I
BREWSTER'S CENTRE
Maybe you think just because scouts go camping in the summer time, and
take hikes and all that, that there's nothing to do in the winter. But
I'm always going to stick up for winter, that's one sure thing.
Anyway, this story isn't exactly a winter story, it's a kind of a fall
story--lightweight. Maybe after this I'll write a heavyweight winter
story. Dorry Benton (he's in my patrol) says that if this story should
run into the winter, I can use heavier paper for the last part of it.
That fellow's crazy.
Believe _me_, there's plenty happening in the fall and in the winter;
look at nutting and skating and ice-boating. Only last winter there were
two big fires here in Bridgeboro and one of them was the High School.
Gee whiz, what more could you want?
But the best fire I ever went to was when the Brewster's Centre railroad
station burned down. That was three or four years ago, and the railroad
decided that as long as there was going to be a big war in Europe, they
wouldn't build a new station.
It won't do you any good to look on the map for Brewster's Centre,
because you won't find it. Even with a microscope you couldn't find it.
The reason you can't find it is, because it isn't there. I guess the men
who made the map couldn't make a small enough dot. That's one thing I'm
crazy about--maps. But I hate geography--geography and cough mixture.
But I'm crazy about apple dumplings.
Anyway, you'll have to take my word for it that Brewster's Centre is
four or five stations above Bridgeboro. There isn't any man named
Brewster. He went out West about fifty years ago. I guess he forgot to
take his centre with him. Anyway, it's up there. I guess nobody wants
it.
There are about a dozen people up in Brewster's Centre who go to the
city; gee, you can't blame them. So the railroad put an old passenger
car on a side track up there and boarded up the under part so you
couldn't see the wheels, just the same as on a lunch wagon. They
partitioned off part of the inside of it for a ticket office and made a
window in the boards, and the rest of the car was a waiting-room. There
was a stove in the corner. It was like the Pennsylvania Station in New
York, only different. They used the same old sign that used to be on the
regular station and it looked funny sprawling all over the side of that
car. It said:
Buffalo 398 Mls.--BREWSTER'S CENTER--N. Y. 30 Mls.
You'd think that Brewster's Centre was the centre of the whole earth.
Anyhow it showed two different ways of getting away from there. It's a
wonder it didn't tell how far it is from Brewster's Centre to Paris. I
guess the moon is about 'steen billion miles from Brewster's Centre. But
one thing, there's a place where you get dandy ice-cream cones up there.
That's all there is to this chapter. It isn't much of a chapter, hey?
But it's big enough for Brewster's Centre. It's a kind of a prologue
chapter. It's like Brewster's Centre, because nothing happens in it. The
only thing that ever happened up there was the fire, and that happened
three or four years ago. You can't even smell the smoke in this chapter.
But just you wait and see what happens.