The nearest they could get to a solution of his peculiarities was that he was not well and that a long course of unemployment and privation had resulted in his losing his grip. They took him as they found him, like the good scouts that they were, and their enterprise to earn a little money for improving their picturesque meeting-place at home seemed transformed into a collective, splendid good turn in which their scout loyalty shone like a light. And so the days of strenuous, cheerful toil, and the nights around the companionable blaze, passed, and Blythe who seemed always fearful and apprehensive of something appeared to be haunted with a kind of dread that this remote and pleasant rustic life would come to an end. "We won't be finished next week?" he would say with a kind of simple air of wishing to put off that evil time. "You don't think so, do you?" And Pee-wee would answer, "That's all right, you leave it to me. I'll fix it." And evidently he did succeed in fixing it, for it rained steadily for three days. CHAPTER XII THREE'S A COMPANY And now, since the sun had reappeared and they had decided to take things a little easier, Pee-wee announced his intentions of going on a pilgrimage to Woodcliff to hunt up the mysterious Helen Shirley Bates, and to ascertain from her the address of her soldier friend whom she had entertained at dinner during the war. For it was on Pee-wee's conscience that the soldier who had lost his wallet had written a letter to his mother somewhere or other and that this had never reached its destination. "Are you going to wear your Sunday uniform?" Roy asked. For Pee-wee kept a special suit of scout khaki for ceremonial occasions. Upon the sleeve of this were his merit badges. On this notable pilgrimage, knowing the weakness of young ladies for official regalia, he wore also his canteen (empty), his scout axe--to hew his way into her presence perhaps--a coil of rope dangling from his belt, his scout scarf tied in the celebrated "raven knot" and his hat inside out as a reminder that he had not yet performed his daily good turn. Upon mailing the letter to its proper address, and not until then, would Scout Harris, R.P. F.B.T. B.S.A., put his hat on right side out. He also took some fudge which he had made as a tribute to his unknown Woodcliff friend. He was prepared to chop her to pieces or to give her candy, whichever the occasion required. He was indeed a human quartermaster's department and in addition to this equipment he carried also somewhere in the depths of one of his pockets a scout note book wherein the good scout rule of "jotting down things seen by the way" was scrupulously obeyed. There were few wayside trifles that escaped Scout Harris' observant eye. A sample page from this record of his travels will give an idea of his thoroughness: