After leaving Little Valley I guess we had all begun to think it would be easy going on account of there not being any streets or houses in our way. Because, one thing, scouts are used to the open country. We never thought about running into anything like that. It came all of a sudden, like, and there we were with the big tree on the ridge across the valley, plain to see, and we couldn’t seem to get any farther. Gee williger, it was pretty hard for any of us to think about turning back then, after going right straight for that tree all day long.
“I don’t know about that,” Westy said. He’s always careful.
Warde said, “Well, what are we going to do then? Turn back? We could go north and down the hill where it’s easy, but that wouldn’t be a bee-line hike.”
I said, “This is a bee-line hike; it’s either straight west or home, victory or defeat. No beating around the bush.”
“That’s us!” they all shouted.
Warde said, “Well, then, we’ve either got to go on or turn back. And I’m going to find out which we have to do. There’s no use standing here talking about it. If we’re beaten, we might as well know it. We can be good losers, I hope. We can either go down this hill or we can’t and I’m not going to say we can’t till I know we can’t. That’s the kind of a scout I’m—going to be.”
“You mean it’s the kind of a scout you are,” I told him. “And I’m glad to have you in my patrol, I’ll tell you that!”
“Maybe this hill can beat me,” he said; “but it can’t fool me. Here, hold my jacket.”