“His middle name is Hunter’s Stew,
He mixes it.
In mixing he can sure outdo,
All other Scouts he ever knew,
And when a thing goes all askew,
He fixes it.
“Good night,” I said, “please let me die in peace. And don’t let Scout Harris come to my funeral because he’ll spoil it all.”
As soon as I dropped down dead, Sandy he dropped down dead too—I could see him with my dying gaze. Dub just stood where he was. He couldn’t die because he was petrified. Everybody started laughing. They even woke me up out of my peaceful death, laughing so hard. I said, “There’s only one thing I have against scouting and that is that there isn’t any fixer’s badge.”
We were all laughing, and all the while Sandy was telling Bobby Easton and those three government surveyors about how Pee-wee was going to fix it for Dub so he’d get the life-saving medal and enough money to stay at camp. Oh boy, didn’t they laugh!
Bobby Easton said, “Then I don’t take it.”
I said, “That’s where you’re positively absolutely wrong the first time, Bunko Daraway Reckless Bravado, because you have to take it whether you want it or not—you’re a hero. You can’t help being one any more than Pee-wee can help being a fixer and doing such good turns to his Scout comrades—accent on the good turns. Do you think it worries us not to get a medal? Didn’t we not find a will? And didn’t we not find some bandits? If we got what we were after when Pee-wee was along we’d all drop dead from shock and so Dub Smedley couldn’t stay anyway, so what do we care? Do you think that was the first time young Harris leaped before he looked?”
“You’re the Scouts that started out camping on a three days’ leave, aren’t you?” Bobby Easton asked me. “I was going to come and ask you if I could go but a Scout told me not to because you fellows were crazy. Now that I know you I think I’d like to stick to you.”
“Why not?” Dub said. “I’ll be starting home next week.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I told him. “Maybe we’ll be able to fix it yet—we should worry.”