Harry said, “Well, the best thing for us to do now is to parade up this hill and send the message. You see, although assaults are usually made unknown to the enemy, in this case we’ll make a big hit if we start some propaganda along ahead of us. It pays to advertise, as Jolly & Kidder would say.”
Now it was a pretty steep climb up to the top of that hill, all woods and jungle. We left the cars down on the road and most of the actor people stayed in them, because they were tired and sleepy. Westy stayed down there so as to cook them some breakfast.
For quite a long distance up that hill we went through thick woods, then we came out into an open place where we could look down and see the road. The autos looked small down there. We could see a little thin line of smoke going up where Westy was starting a fire. The sun was getting brighter and it made Jolly & Kidder’s van look all shiny on account of the bright paint on it. It seemed funny to see a department store car away out there in that lonesome country.
Pretty soon we got into more woods and Harry said he guessed there must be a trail. But we couldn’t find any.
He said, “This is a forsaken wilderness up here.”
“I bet the foot of white man never trod it,” Pee-wee said; “I bet it’s unknown to civilization up here.”
“Well, I guess we’re not likely to bunk into any movie shows,” Brent said.
Jiminetty, but it was some wild place, all right. We had to go single file and tear away the brush so that we could get through. Tom Slade went ahead, because he can find a trail if there is one, and even if there isn’t he always knows how to go. The farther up we went, the worse it got. We couldn’t see the road at all on account of the thick woods below us. Gee, it was so still up there that it was sort of spooky.
“I guess no white man ever trod this solemn wilderness before, as our young friend Scout Harris observed,” Harry said; “it gets worser and worser.”
Just then Tom Slade stopped and we all stopped in his path. In about a jiffy he was down on the ground. Gee whiz, I knew what that meant, for I knew Tom Slade.