“What are you worrying about? We can’t get lost,” Warde said to him.
“How is it going to end, that’s what I want to know?” the kid shouted.
“It isn’t going to end,” I said; “it’s perpetual motion.”
Gee whiz, I had to laugh at him. He was trudging along with a scowl on his face, and he looked kind of disgusted with all of us. The funny part of him is that he always goes with us, and yet he keeps kicking all the time.
“I suppose you’re going to write this up like the other crazy hikes we took,” he said. “Everything you do you write a story about it.”
I said, “Sure, I remind myself of the Woolworth Building, I have so many stories. Keep to the left.” He was just going to turn into a path to the right, but I hauled him back.
We just kept on going along the path around the lake; it was awful funny because we knew it wouldn’t get us anywhere. The kid was wild. Pretty soon we came to the outlet of the lake (you can see it on the map), and Hervey jumped across it, then Brent took one of those long steps of his, very solemn, and Warde and I followed.
I don’t know how Sandwich got across, but he was waiting for us on the other side. He acted as if he knew we were all crazy and liked it. Our young hero tried to take a long step across and, kerflop, down he went into the water. One good thing, it wasn’t very deep.
“Going down,” Warde said.
“If we’re going to keep going around and around this lake till we’re all—till we’re all walking skeletons,” Pee-wee shouted, “I’m going to put a board across that outlet.”