"No more than the paint is," Mr. Bull said, looking kind of sideways at the farmer. I guess Mr. Bull saw how it was all right. "You boys are protected by your contract with Mr. Grabberberry here. You"re absolutely safe, you"re covered."
"By Brown"s hats," Westy said.
Mr. Bull said, "Exactly. The sentence above refers to you. You"ve given us an idea."
"We have lots of ideas," Pee-wee said.
I said, "I"ve got an idea we"d like to get away from here; we"re hungry.
We"ve been in the hat business for over an hour. We"ve got a date with a tree."
He said, "The world belongs to the boy scouts. Everybody knows them and likes them. To say they"re on top is just telling the truth. I think we will hook you boys up with Brown"s hats. We may ask you to pose. Brown"s hats are known the world over. Step right down, boys, and have no fear."
"Did you see me from the train?" Pee-wee asked him. "Did you see me fall backwards? I bet I sold a lot of hats that way, hey?"
"Oceans of them," Mr. Bull said.
You can bet we weren"t afraid with a bull to protect us. We went down the ladder and the farmer didn"t say a word. I guess he was thinking about the money he got from Brown"s hats all right. He said to Mr.
Bull, very nice and polite, "I kinder thought they wuz trespa.s.sin", you know. "N I was a-scared they"d get inter some trouble."
"Believe me," I said, "we can"t get into trouble because we never got out of it. Anyway, we like the hat business pretty well and I wouldn"t mind living on a sign except for getting hungry."
So then Mr. Slinger Bull tried to make us take five dollars for our trouble, but we wouldn"t take it because scouts don"t accept money for that kind of a service. Anyway, it wasn"t a service at all, it was just fun. I bet you never heard of anybody being marooned on a desert signboard before.
CHAPTER THE LAST (THANK GOODNESS)
IT HASN"T GOT ANY NAME
Now that was the last adventure that we had that day. But we"ve had a lot since then. We picked our way up through the woods on the side of the ridge, using our compa.s.s, because we couldn"t see far ahead. It was getting dark and the woods were awful still. Every time a twig cracked under us it seemed to make a loud noise. There were crickets chirping too. It kind of reminded me of Temple Camp after supper. We kept straight west because we knew that was where the tree was. I guess we all got sort of excited as we came up near to the top of the ridge.
I said, "I"m glad the last part of our hike is through the woods. Maybe we had a lot of fun in Bridgeboro and in Little Valley, but the woods for me."
Pretty soon we came out into the open and there in the dusk stood the great big tree all by itself. It seemed awful solemn like.
Westy said, "_Look!_ Away off there in the east. See?"
Oh, boy! Away, way, way off across the country we had come through was like a shaft of dust sticking right up into the sky. It was the searchlight on the Bridgeboro fire-house.
"Let"s start a good big fire," I said, "so our folks will know we"re all right. Then we"ll start home."
So we started a fire and sat around it and jollied each other and especially Pee-wee--you know how we"re always doing. And we roasted the potatoes that we had with us and they tasted good, kind of like smoke.
After a while Westy said, "Well, here"s the end of our bee-line hike and I bet we didn"t go more than about ten or twenty feet out of our path all the way."
"That"s the only way to get any fun out of a bee-line hike," I said.
"Either do it right or not at all."
After we were all rested and had eaten all our potatoes we trampled the fire out and went up to the stateroad about a quarter of a mile away to wait for the jitney. I was good and tired, I know that.
Warde said, "I"ve been sitting on the porch all summer reading adventures, but this beats them all. And the best part is it was all real."
"Believe me," I told him, "a real agate is an imitation compared to us."
"I"m glad I"m in the scouts," he said.
"The worst is yet to come," I told him.
He said, "I"m game."
"_You bet you are!_" all the fellows shouted.
We all looked back and said, "Good night, old tree, see you later." It seemed as if that big tree had been with us all day and we had come to be friends, sort of. Maybe it saw everything from up there and was laughing to itself at all the crazy things we did, hey?
As we went along toward the stateroad Dorry said, "Let"s take a hike straight north to-morrow."
"Sure, for the North Pole," Hunt said.
"You can count me out," I told them. "I"m going over to Little Valley to-morrow to play tennis if anybody should ask you."
Right away that crazy kid started jumping up and down, shouting, "_What I know about you! What I know about you!_"
I should worry about that bunch. Believe me, I was glad to think of getting rid of them for a day.
So long, I"ll see you later.
THE END
THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS
By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of "Tom Slade," "Pee-wee Harris," "Westy Martin," Etc.
Ill.u.s.trated. Individual Picture Wrappers in Color.
Every Volume Complete in Itself.
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.
ROY BLAKELEY ROY BLAKELEY"S ADVENTURES IN CAMP ROY BLAKELEY, PATHFINDER ROY BLAKELEY"S CAMP ON WHEELS ROY BLAKELEY"S SILVER FOX PATROL ROY BLAKELEY"S MOTOR CARAVAN ROY BLAKELEY, LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN ROY BLAKELEY"S BEE-LINE HIKE ROY BLAKELEY AT THE HAUNTED CAMP ROY BLAKELEY"S FUNNY BONE HIKE ROY BLAKELEY"S TANGLED TRAIL ROY BLAKELEY ON THE MOHAWK TRAIL