“Are we going to get killed,” Willie Rivers asked anxiously.
“Staying till the death means till it’s all over,” Pee-wee explained. “Now I’ll tell you about those sealed orders, only usually nobody but the captains know about those. Last year Chocolate Drop, he’s cook and I stand in with him, last year he said every scout that could go scout pace around the lake in an hour could have three helpings of dessert for the rest of the season. But anyway nobody did it because on account of Goldenrod Cove; that’s an outlet of the lake.
“So now we’re going to sail into that cove and you’ll see how it is when we get there. It’s kind of like a cove only different. So now we have to do what it says in the sealed orders. And you’ll see how I’m going to win the pioneering badge too.”
“What are we going to write in the note that’s invisible?” little Howard Delekson ventured to ask.
“We’re going to tell them the way is clear for them to hike around in less than an hour if they want to.”
“Why don’t we send it right away so they’ll be sure to find it soon?” Willie asked.
“Because the bottle’s full of stuffed olives and we have to empty it first but anyway that reminds me that I’m hungry.”
“Can we help you empty it?” Howard asked tactfully.
“Sure you can,” said Pee-wee, fishing the bottle of olives up out of the keg; “I never knew I wanted some olives till you reminded me.”
The bottle was soon emptied, and now Pee-wee, kneeling at an old grocery box, stood his precious onion on it like an inkstand. Having next produced his scout note book and laid it solemnly upon the grocery box, he brought forth a deadly skewer which he had extracted from a ham in Cooking Shack, and with it stabbed the onion to the heart. Perhaps it was because their gallant bark was nearing the middle of the lake and the beloved camp receding in the distance, or perhaps it was from sheer joy at the great good turn he expected so soon to perform, but it is a fact that at the very moment he punctured the onion with his makeshift pen, his eyes filled with tears.