I can’t tell you about all the crazy things that fellow did. It looked awful funny to see the rest of us following, especially Pee-wee with a scowl all over his face. I guessed Hervey knew where he was going all right because no matter what he did he always came back to a trail.
Pretty soon we came to the old railroad branch. A long time ago that used to go to some mines. We followed the old tracks through the woods. Hervey walked on one of the rails and we all tried to keep on it, but it was hard balancing ourselves he went so fast.
I guess maybe we went a half mile that way and then we saw ahead of us a funny kind of a car on the track. It wasn’t meant to carry people, it was meant to carry iron ore, I guess. It was about as long as a very young trolley car. A long iron bar, a funny kind of a coupling I guess it was, stuck out from it. It was all open, like a great big scuttle, kind of. There were piles of stones and earth and old holes all caved in nearby. Those were the old iron mines, Hervey said.
“Gee whiz,” I told him, “I’ve been to Temple Camp every summer and I never saw this place before. Christopher Columbus hasn’t got anything on you.”
“Follow your leader wherever he goes,” he said, and over the end of the car he went and, kerflop, down inside, all the rest of us after him. There was straw inside.
That fellow couldn’t sit down long. In about ten seconds up he jumped and shouted, “Follow your leader.”
I was so tired I could have just lain in that little car till Christmas, but I got up and so did the others, all except Pee-wee.
“Come on, follow your leader,” I said.
“Not much,” he said; “I’m going to lie here and take a rest. I’ve had enough funny-bone hiking. If you think I’m going to follow you all over the Catskill Mountains without any dinner, you’re mistaken. I know the way home from here, it’s easy. Go ahead and march into the Hudson River if you want to for all I care.”
“Which way do we go from here?” Hervey asked him.