Sure enough, they were there waiting for us when we came flopping along. And a lot of other people were there, too. Gee whiz, everybody had heard about us by that time. We floated right up against the bridge—bump. And then some men threw us a rope and we fastened it to the old barge and they pulled us ashore. Everybody stared at us like the natives stared at Columbus Ohio when he landed on San Salvador.
We just walked ashore and I didn’t pay any attention to that bunch of quitters and I said, “This seems to be a nice place. We take possession of it in the name of the Boy Scouts of America. Are there any ice cream stores here?”
“This is Hanley’s Crossing,” a little girl spoke up.
I said, “It’s all right; wrap it up and we’ll take it home.”
Oh, boy, some excitement! We told our story and you ought to have seen everybody stare, especially those five fellows. I guess they envied us, all right.
I said, “It serves you fellows right for leaving us. We should have stayed all separated together. Now you see what comes from not having a scout smile. The face with the smile wins. You should apologize to the next rainstorm you see. While there’s life there’s adventure.”
“Do you think we’d let a marsh foil us?” Pee-wee said.
“Do you think we’d desert the poor, defenseless cat-tails for an ice cream soda?” Will said.
“You never can tell where a game of checkers will end,” said Westy.
“Or a car,” I said.