The major said, “So you were responsible for that column of smoke, hey?”
Harry said, “You’re kind of old fashioned, Major, on signal corps work. That was us, all right, and these little neighbors of yours gave you the message and you laughed at them. Well, here we are with the goods, Little Eva weeping her eyes out, Topsy ready to cut up, and Simon Legree with his whip; here we are just as we said we’d be—Johnny on the spot. We’ve brought with us every veteran between here and Barrow’s Homestead and they’re with us to the last ditch. Field Marshal Gaylong here is feared by every crow in the west. Now what are you going to do about it?
“We purpose, Major, to cut off your base of supplies; it’s either that or surrender. We want that shady little grove over there as indemnity. If we don’t get it we’re going to seize all the ice cream, all the soda water, all the lemonade, all the candy, all the popcorn on this bloody battlefield and starve you out. The Grand Army will look like Grand Street, New York, when we get through with it.”
“And frankfurters too!” Pee-wee shouted.
“There won’t be a frankfurter left to tell the tale,” Harry said; “this peaceful land will run red with red lemonade. Now what do you say?”
Gee whiz, I wouldn’t accuse Harry of being a traitor, but just the same I saw him wink at Major Grumpy, and Major Grumpy began to smile, and then he offered Harry a cigarette.
That was giving aid and comfort to the enemy, all right.
CHAPTER XXXVI—SCOUTS ON THE JOB
So that shows you how this story has a happy ending, only that isn’t the end of it. Oh, boy, the worst is yet to come. A lot of terrible things happen after a war. Now we come to the reconstruction period. And, believe me, Major Grumpy reconstructed his opinion about the scouts. He said that poor little patrol that was just starting could have the grove to build a headquarters in and he gave them some money to build it, too, He said that before we got there he thought that smoke away off on the mountain was just a forest fire, but when he found out that we could make smoke talk, good night, he was for us, all right.
But anyway, he said he liked to hear Pee-wee talk better. I said, “Yes, but it would be nice if he’d go off on a lonely mountain and talk, like the smudge fire.”