Pee-wee looked terribly disappointed. I guess he had a wild idea that that robber was still beating it and that we could catch him if we hurried up. He seemed to think that he was on the trail of something or other.
That night we had our first troop meeting in the old car, and Mr. Ellsworth read the letter to all the fellows. He said it was very interesting to hear these shots out of the past (that was the way he said it), and how we could always think of our quaint meeting-place, as the scene of a truly remarkable adventure of days gone by. He uses dandy big words, Mr. Ellsworth does.
Then the troop settled down to making plans for going up to Temple Camp, because that’s where we always go in vacation. Poor Pee-wee and his letter had to take a back seat. Mr. Ellsworth said that after all, up-to-date adventures are better than old stale ones, and that we should worry about pirates boarding ships and robbers stopping trains and shooting and things like that, that happened a long while ago. He said that, because he’s down on the movies, especially Wild West stuff, and he’s always trying to keep us thinking about scouting. I’ve got his number, all right.
But, anyway, Pee-wee wouldn’t let me paste that old letter in our troop-book. He just hung on to it. I don’t know what he was thinking about, but I guess he had an idea that something would be revealed. That’s his favorite word—revealed.
On the way home from troop-meeting, he gave me a free lecture. Gee, I wish you could have heard him.
“Suppose that pirate chief in the movies hadn’t kept the—you know—the tell-tale papers,” he said; “what would have happened? Do you think I’d let this letter be pasted in the troop-book? No siree! Look at that fellow—Ralph Rogers—in the Fatal Vow. He let the other fellow have the mortgage and see what happened. His old gray haired mother was turned out in the snow. No siree; safety first, that’s what I say. Suppose a descendant of that robber——”
“Don’t make me laugh, Kid,” I said; “let’s go in Bennett’s and get a couple of cones. What do you say?”
That’s one thing that Pee-wee was strictly up-to-date on—ice-cream cones. When it comes to ice-cream cones, even dark adventures have to stand in line. Believe me, many’s the ice-cream cone that dropped in its tracks—I mean dripped—when he gave it a mortal blow.
I had to laugh to see him hiking alongside of me, with his belt-axe dragging his belt way down and his compass dangling around his neck like a locket. His pockets are always stuffed full of Lyric programs and clippings about missing people that he intends to find, and directions out of papers about how to do in case he should meet a lion or an elephant—on Main Street, I suppose. If he should bunk into a rattlesnake on his way to school all he’d have to do would be to haul out a clipping and then he’d know to “stare right at it with glaring eyes and it would retreat in terror.” Honest, he’s a scream. He read in “Boys’ Life” that a grizzly is afraid of bright red, so he has a red glass in his flashlight. He’s not taking any chances. Be Prepared.
I wish you could see that kid. He always carries an onion with him, because he thinks if you stick a pen in an onion it will write invisible and then if you hold the paper over a fire the writing will come out clear. He’s got his pockets full of invisible writing. I never saw any of it come out good and strong yet. The only thing that comes out good and strong is the onion.