Dub said, “I’d like you and Pee-wee and Sandy and Will Dawson to hike down to the train with me to-morrow. Catskill isn’t so much of a hike is it?”
“Sure not,” I said, “but it will seem funny coming back without you.”
“Let’s finish up with a hike,” he said. “We had a lot of fun hiking together—I did anyway. I’d kind of like to start home that way. Will you? Just you and Sandy and Pee-wee and Will Dawson and I, hey? I can send this old grip down on the bus, can’t I?”
“Sure you can,” I said. “But, gee, I don’t want you to go, Dub.”
“I’d treat you all to ice cream in Catskill if I wasn’t so blamed hard up,” he said. “But will you fellows hike down with me? We’ll start good and early and just sort of mope along like that day we hiked to Beaver Chasm, and you and Pee-wee can have one of those mortal comebacks. Will you? We’ll make it crazy, hey?”
“Sure, Dub,” I said. “You bet we will, only—”
I don’t know, I couldn’t say anything, I just started looking at the snapshots.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE LAST HIKE
So that’s the way he did, we all hiked down to Catskill to see Dub off. The Scouts that went were the Big Four and Will Dawson. All my patrol wanted to go but I wouldn’t let them because I was going to do just the way Dub wanted. I told Pee-wee we were all going to be good and crazy, so as to make Dub feel good. The kid said, “I knew it before you told me.”
I told him, “If you want to stay behind the pleasure is ours. We’ll be able to have fifty-two more ice cream cones each.”