Jiminies, that made us all sober. Even I was sorry that I started kidding Pee-wee. I said, “Believe me, if there’s anything we can do to help you we’ll be only too glad to do it.”
“Sure, that’s our middle name,” Pee-wee said.
Mr. Bagley said, “And you’ll be helping yourselves too; you’ll be helping Temple Camp.”
“That’s us,” I said.
CHAPTER VII
BEAVER CHASM
Pretty soon we came to Beaver Chasm—it’s in the woods. Lots of times I saw it but I never went down in it. Once a couple of Scouts from camp told me there were rattlesnakes in it; I guess that was the reason. All the times I had been to it before I followed the brook from Black Lake. You can see how it goes on the map I made, not saying what kind of a map it is. I guess I’d get about six minus for it in school—I should worry. Anyway Beaver Chasm is a deep place that the brook flows through. That brook starts away off some place or other and goes west through the chasm, then south into Black Lake. It takes a west southerly course—gee, I remind myself of a geography lesson—that’s one study I have no use for.
Anyway you needn’t bother about the brook now so you can let it flow merrily, merrily, what care we—that’s in my school reader. Do you see where the arrows are pointing? Where it says Roy’s route and Through the woods? Well that’s the way the four of us went and you can see where we got becalmed near the Bagley’s Green railroad station, only the map doesn’t show where the wind went and anyway I don’t know how to make a picture of the wind.
After we started off with Mr. Bagley we went north up through the woods toward the chasm. I never went to it that way before. All the times I had gone to it I had gone in at the end of it like the brook does, I hope I make myself plain, that’s dandy language like a real author. You see where Bagley Center is? It’s about two miles north of the chasm. There are a lot of stores there and everything. It’s a flourishing met—something or other, only I don’t know how to spell it.
I don’t like maps any better than you do and there are only two more things about this one. Do you see how there’s a road going from Bagley Center to Catskill? You can’t see Catskill but anyway it’s off in that direction and you can get dandy big ice cream cones there in Schnizel’s Confectionery. But if you’re hiking from Catskill to Bagley Center there’s a short cut through the woods and for quite a ways you don’t have to bother with the road. I made a dotted line for that trail and it goes across Beaver Chasm on three or four logs side by side—some bridge! So now you know all about the country where we were going to have some adventures.
So now you have to answer questions. 1. Which way did Roy Blakeley and his four companions approach Beaver Chasm? Correct, be seated. 2. Which way can you take a short cut through the woods from Catskill to Bagley Center? Point out where the log bridge is? Then you can go home if you want to, I don’t care.