Our hero had contemplated these scoffers with characteristic scorn. “That shows,” he had begun, then coming up for air proceeded in tones of thunder, “that shows that you’re all parlor scouts—”
“What do you call yourself—a kitchen scout?” Roy had laughed.
“It shows how much you know about resolution and, and, and—solemn vows—and pioneer life and surmounting obstacles by your own initials, I mean initiatives and things like that, I bet you—I bet you—we don’t come down to one single meal while he’s here. I bet you we don’t even come down to find out what time it is, I bet you we don’t. I bet we tell time by the sun. Even salt, I haven’t got any but I know how to get it from rocks. I’m not going to even ask for it. Even matches we’re not going to ask for. I bet we don’t come near Temple Camp” (he called it Temple Camp as if by that formal designation to put it far away) “for anything. Absolutely, positively—and definitely—we won’t come down for eats or anything. So you needn’t expect to see us.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Roy had said.
CHAPTER XXXIV
END OF THE RELAY RACE
As the sun slowly sank behind the hills Pee-wee finished his tomato and even as the deeper twilight erased the crimson glow from the wooded hilltops, he wiped the vivid red from his round face and smacked his lips and sent his tongue on a sort of clean-up tour about the exterior of his mouth.
Then he crept out under a neighboring pine tree, and gathering a few stray twigs, proceeded to amplify the little pyramid of kindling which he had built under a tempting looking black pot which stood on two miniature walls of brick.
He lifted the tin cover from this pot and gazed fondly, proudly, within at his handiwork, a hunters’ stew, ready for boiling. With a rough wooden spoon he stirred it revealing tempting bits of carrot, pearly shavings of onion, and substantial pieces of meat. There was stew enough there for two, on a two helping basis, and it would keep till the morrow in case his elaborate calculations of the movements of the relay racers proved inaccurate. He replaced the cover on the pot, gave a look of defiance down at camp, and resumed his seat upon the doorstep.
There is something very captivating in making calculations and then waiting for their nice fulfillment. In starting his famous relay race from Westwood, New Jersey, Pee-wee had included Spring Valley, Haverstraw, Fort Montgomery, Newburgh, Plattekill, New Paltz, Kingston, Saugerties, and Catskill, as the relay points. All of these places were large enough to have scouts and he had Alton Beech’s assurance that there would be no difficulty in passing the letter to some willing messenger in each of the towns named. Each messenger would be able to do his allotted errand and return to his home without a long absence.