After about a minute he said, “Scouts, I have an idea. This trip is a failure—it’s commonplace. We’ve been trying to get some originality and pep into our travels and we haven’t succeeded. We planned an escape from jail and it fell through. We weren’t even sent to jail; I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s the truth. You fellows were on the point of being sent to jail and then, just when everything was going nicely and you seemed likely to have an adventure, along came some old judge and put one over on you—gave you a check for five hundred bucks. It’s discouraging.”
Harry said, “I know it,”—awful funny.
Then Brent said, “Every story I ever read about going after buried treasure, the men who went after it found it. I was in hopes our little story might have a different ending—just for the sake or originality. But nothing doing; it seems we’re going to go home loaded down with gold.”
“I know it,” Harry said; “I’m sorry. I kind of like this bench under the Dahadinee poplar; it makes me think of old Thor or whatever his name was, and Ann.”
For about a minute nobody said anything; we just sprawled around watching the fire. The big tree stood there, you know, kind of dignified and solemn like.
“What time shall we start chopping and digging?” Brent asked.
But nobody said anything. Then, good night, Pee-wee Harris, Captain Kidd, Jr., spoke up.
“What’s the good of gold, anyway?” he said. “We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?”
“How about the rolling-pin and the burlap bags and the pickaxe and the shovels?” Harry said.
“We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?” Pee-wee shouted at him. “Alf is right.”