“I can kind of smell cooking; anyway I think I can,” said Howard.
“We’ve got six dollars anyway,” said Willie.
“We’re foiled!” Pee-wee shouted. “What good is six dollars? We promised we wouldn’t go in the water and we can’t get to camp. I know a way to cook moss if you’re starving, only I haven’t got any moss and if I did have, I haven’t got any matches.”
“I can see all those signs about desserts and things; look over there toward the cove,” said Willie. “Don’t you know you said the way to see was by taking off your jacket and holding up your sleeve so as to kind of make a telescope out of it—don’t you remember? Do you think we’ll be peruned long?”
“Now you’re talking about prunes!” Pee-wee fairly yelled in despair.
“Don’t you like prunes?” Willie asked innocently.
CHAPTER XXVII—RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL
We will not describe the sufferings of the marooned Hop-toads. Under direction of Scout Harris they tried several of the most approved expedients for preserving life in such perilous predicaments as theirs.
Pee-wee knew of a way, highly popular in the days of the explorers, of extracting nourishment from shoe leather by soaking it in water. But the life-giving soup thus produced was not palatable. These things are matters of taste, and this did not taste good.
“I know a way, a scout way, to make fishes come to you by focussing the sun with your watch crystal,” said Pee-wee; “and I can light a piece of paper that way, too. That’s the way pioneers do when they haven’t any fishing tackle, only they use quartz crystal or maybe a locket with their mother’s picture in it; you can use anything that shines.”