“What are you supposed to go by in a fog?” Simon asked innocently.
Pee-wee thought for a moment, then “handled” the situation. “They’re supposed to get lost,” he said; “you have to get lost sometimes. Gee whiz, what’s the good of being a scout if you don’t?”
This seemed to convince Simon for he said no more. If getting lost was indeed part of the game, Pee-wee was running true to the scout program, for he was lost with a vengeance. Not a scout sign was there to help him, nor were any of the tried and true wrinkles of the least avail in that damp, enshrouding waste.
Neither one of our doughty adventurers had the slightest idea where they were. They paused at another cross-road and Pee-wee made a vain search for moss, but it had all gone to bed. He ventured a few yards from the road in quest of a woodchuck hole for he knew that woodchucks always burrowed in a southerly direction. But the woodchucks seemed all to have taken their burrows in on account of the dampness.
He did find one hole near the roadside which went straight down, and this seemed to reflect on the well known sagacity of the woodchuck, until Simon lifted the reproach from that lowly creature by proving that the hole had been made for the accommodation of a fence post. The well known characteristic of fence posts of standing upright, settled the matter once and for all.
“If there were beavers here I could tell,” said Pee-wee.
They turned into this side road and continued going; there seemed nothing else to do. They were in a strange world and there was nothing to give them the least clue as to where they were. The oxen seemed willing enough to take any road; they had no theories or prejudices.
“We’re somewhere,” Pee-wee said, “that’s sure.” This seemed probable enough but the knowledge was not hopeful or reassuring....
CHAPTER XXII
AT THE CROSS-ROAD