“All right, I’ll leave everything to you, Kid, because you have charge of the eats. If you don’t find him, anything you want to cook will be all right—some nice boiled grass or fried roots—anything.” Pee-wee gave one more wistful look into the garage, then departed in search of its owner. He returned with the cheerful tidings that the man lived seven miles away in Tiddyville and that he always closed up at six o’clock. He had further ascertained that the man had no telephone. “I suppose he thought we live somewhere around here and that we’ll call to-morrow,” said Townsend. “Guess he thought we wouldn’t be back to-night anyway. Well, we’ve got a dollar and a quarter on hand, and a dollar twenty goes to our absent friend. That leaves a nickel—” “There aren’t any stores anyway,” said Pee-wee, disgruntled. “Well, then,” said Townsend, spinning the quarter into the air, “what are we going to do? Beg at a farm? Or spend this man’s money buying something of a farmer? Or are we going to be scouts? Not hot air scouts but real, honest-to-goodness scouts. You said I wasn’t much on scouting; said you’d teach me some things if I was only your unknown pal. Well, how about it?” he asked, still spinning the quarter in the air. “Are we going to stand here grouching and looking in that window like a couple of hoodlums rubbering in a bakery shop window? Or are we going to be scouts? What do you say? Shall we beat it into the woods and get supper? How about you?” “_I’ve got an inspiration!_” shouted Pee-wee. “We don’t have to eat bark. I know real mushrooms when I see them and there are lots and lots and lots and lots of them only you’ve got to know them!” “Now you’re shouting,” said Townsend. “You were only talking a little while ago.” “When was I only talking?” Pee-wee demanded. “On the way to the river.” “I was shouting then,” he said. “Well, then you’re screaming now. Did I ever tell you my middle name, Kid? It’s mushrooms.” CHAPTER XXXII THREE’S A COMPANY That was the night of the mushroom feast, gathered by a scout who knew where to find them and how to distinguish them and how to cook them and how to eat them—oh, very much so. And so you see that scouts need not starve, though they seem to be always half starved at that. The next morning Lizzie with her new belt rejoined them and they had no further adventures till they reached camp, except that they were stopped by the authorities in both Saugerties and Kingston. In both these places, however, Pee-wee assisted by Justice Dopett managed to pilot Townsend and his flivver clear of official rocks and reefs. In Catskill they struck another official rock but they were out of the enemy’s country then and in the hallowed neighborhood of the camp. “Go ahead with you and get your card and don’t bring that pile of junk down into the village again,” said the bluff village constable. “There’s a dump between here and Leeds fer such trash.”