“That’s the idea,” said Ray; “we leave all our plans and knowledge at the nearest station; from that point we go where the wind blows us.”
“I can tell which way the wind is blowing,” Pee-wee said.
“Don’t, it would be fatal,” said Fuller. “One little scrap of knowledge might spoil all.”
“I’ve got a lot of little scraps,” Pee-wee said; “but I won’t bother with them, hey? I won’t even look up at the stars because I can tell which way I’m going by the stars. I wouldn’t look at the dipper—I wouldn’t even look at it if I was lost and famished—that’s the same as starving. Maybe we’ll get into, way into the woods, hey? Because up around Temple Camp if you count three houses, gee whiz, that might take you miles and miles and miles where the foot of white man never trod, it might. That’s how far apart they are. Maybe when we get out at somewhere or other the third house will be a hermit’s cave, hey? Gee whiz, you never can tell.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” said Fuller Bullson. “I went on a bee-line hike,” Pee-wee vociferated, keeping up a running fire of talk as he trudged along, straining a cautious look down his neck occasionally, “and we had to make a resolution to go straight, and gee whiz, that resolution was a nuisance, because we were all the time thinking about it.”
“You should have left it home,” said Ray.
“Gee, I’ll never take one with me again,” said Pee-wee.
“You see,” said Fuller, “if you are lost you can’t get lost. Can you?”
“Sure you can’t,” Pee-wee agreed enthusiastically.
“If you don’t care where you go you can’t go to the wrong place,” said Ray. “Places aren’t wrong or right. How can places be wrong or right?”