Twisted into the cord of his scout hat was an arrow pointing forward, which gave him an exceedingly martial appearance and was useful, too, in pointing out the way he should go and safeguarding him from the danger of going backward. But if, by an accident, he should go backward or sideways, he had the empty funnel of an old auto horn with which to magnify his voice and make the forest ring with his sonorous cries for help. And if the help did not come, he had still one cylinder of an old opera glass, with the lens of which he could ignite a dried leaf by day or observe the guiding stars by night. And if there were no dried leaves he had his crumpled piece of tissue paper. And if the stars did not shine, he had a rag for extracting confidential information from the wind. And if there was no wind, he should worry, he had gum-drops mobilized in every pocket. Every safety device known to scout science (and many of quite original conception) were upon the martial form of Scout Harris, so that he could not possibly go wrong or starve.
So it was without any fear that he set forth for the untrodden wilds of Frying-pan Island notwithstanding that it was a quarter of a mile wide and nearly a third of a mile long.
CHAPTER XXXIV
PEE-WEE HOLDS FORTH
It was a delightful ride to Kidder Lake in the daytime. There is no time like the autumn--except the spring. And the spring is only good because it is the beginning of the summer. Just the same as the winter is best because the spring comes after it. As Roy Blakeley would have said, "You can do that by algebra." But there is nothing, either before or after, to make algebra good.
As Jim Burton's big Packard car sped along, the country looked bleak and the fields wan with their yellow corn-stalks. Even the little shacks where fresh fruit and vegetables had been displayed to motorists were now boarded up. Their cheerless, deserted look contributed quite as much as the changing foliage to the scene of coldness, desolation. The sad look which Nature assumes when school opens. The wind blew and the leaves fell and the West Ketchem scouts fell too, for Scout Harris, who was also blowing.
"That's what you call a proincidence, how I don't have to go to school yet, the same as you don't on account of yours burning down. Gee whiz, I like camp-fires, but I like school fires better."
"And you'll show us how to make a camp-fire?"
"Sure I will; I'11 show you how they do at Temple Camp. Is there anybody living on that island?"
"No one but us, and we'll have to be going home soon," said Charlie Norris.