At Catskill, Artie, arousing himself from his pre-occupation, said, “Look here, Kid; we’ve got to decide about it now, because I want to send a letter to Billy Simpson. If he’s coming, he’s got to come Wednesday. Hanged if I know what to do,” he added, perplexed, and perhaps a little troubled in his conscience, “I wish Mr. Ellsworth was here. What do you think? If your—your—what d’you call it?—your scheme up here doesn’t work, do you think you can round up a patrol at home?”
“You leave it to me,” said Pee-wee; “don’t all my schemes succeed? You just leave it to me, I’ll fix it.”
“It’s all right then?”
“S-u-re, it’s all right.”
Still Artie hesitated. “I don’t know what to do, Kid,” he said.
“I’ll tell you what to do,” said Pee-wee in a burst of inspiration; “let’s go get some ice cream cones.”
CHAPTER XI—BILLY SIMPSON’S CHANCE
“You’ll find us in the post office,” Grove called after Pee-wee, who was descending pell-mell on Mrs. Westgrove’s familiar candy kitchen.
“I’ll get some jaw breakers too, hey?” Pee-wee called back.
“Jiminy, I don’t know, it makes me feel awful funny to do that,” said Artie to Grove. “We’ve never lost a member before. I sort of feel as if we were taking advantage of his good nature. If it wasn’t that Billy Simpson is so crazy to get into scouting— Gee, I hate to see a scout go begging for a patrol. Suppose it was Doc. Carson or El Sawyer, or Wig Weigand? We wouldn’t drop them to make room for another like that. Hang it all, why don’t they make it nine instead of eight in a patrol?”