Anyway, we made up some pretty good late eats and after that we got a good big fire started and all sat around it. Brent lay on his back near the blaze and had his knees drawn up and was looking up at the sky. That’s just the way he lay all the while he was telling us about his patrol and why they came up that way. It seemed as if he thought it was all just a big joke, but I could see he thought a good deal about scouting and about those fellows. I had to laugh at him, but I liked him a lot just the same. He was kind of happy-go-lucky, I could see that. Harry Donnelle liked him, that was sure. I guess it was because he was kind of happy-go-lucky, too.
“Buried treasure is all right,” that’s what he said, “and so are missing people, and people lost in the woods and all that; and liberal rewards are very nifty. But if you’re after fifty or so buckarinos, the best thing is driving a grocery wagon or selling the Saturday Evening Post on street corners. You don’t get much adventure mowing people’s lawns, but it’s sure money. The trouble with us is we’ve been speculating in adventure and now we’re going to walk back home. Take a lesson from our terrible example—and don’t read the newspapers.”
Harry Donnelle said, “There’s seventy-five per cent profit in adventures. I’d go to South Africa if I thought there was a ten cent piece buried there.” That was just exactly like him.
“Anyway,” I said, “I’d like to know why I shouldn’t read the newspapers.”
“Because they will lead you astray. They sent us off on a get-rich-quick enterprise,” Brent said.
Of course, I knew he was half joking, but that was always the funny way he talked. He reached over and held a stick in the fire till the end of it was all flaming, then he stuck it in the ground near his head and pulled a clipping out of his pocket. He kept lying on his back all the time and he looked so funny, I just had to laugh.
Then he said, “Well, now, this is what brought us up into these woolly wilds”, and he began to read the clipping. This is it, because he gave it to me afterwards:
BOY SCOUTS ASKED TO SEARCH FOR MISSING DOUGHBOY.
Boy scouts in all sections of the country have been asked to watch for Horace E. Chandler, late of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, who has been missing since his discharge from Camp Upton several weeks ago.
Private Chandler was mustered out on August third, having served with great courage and distinction in the Argonne Forest, where he received honorable mention for unusual heroism in raiding single handed an enemy machine gun nest.