"No more than the paint is," Mr. Bull said, looking kind of sideways at the farmer. I guess Mr. Bull saw how it was all right. "You boys are protected by your contract with Mr. Grabberberry here. You're absolutely safe, you're covered." "By Brown's hats," Westy said. Mr. Bull said, "Exactly. The sentence above refers to you. You've given us an idea." "We have lots of ideas," Pee-wee said. I said, "I've got an idea we'd like to get away from here; we're hungry. We've been in the hat business for over an hour. We've got a date with a tree." He said, "The world belongs to the boy scouts. Everybody knows them and likes them. To say they're on top is just telling the truth. I think we will hook you boys up with Brown's hats. We may ask you to pose. Brown's hats are known the world over. Step right down, boys, and have no fear." "Did you see me from the train?" Pee-wee asked him. "Did you see me fall backwards? I bet I sold a lot of hats that way, hey?" "Oceans of them," Mr. Bull said. You can bet we weren't afraid with a bull to protect us. We went down the ladder and the farmer didn't say a word. I guess he was thinking about the money he got from Brown's hats all right. He said to Mr. Bull, very nice and polite, "I kinder thought they wuz trespassin', you know. 'N I was a-scared they'd get inter some trouble." "Believe me," I said, "we can't get into trouble because we never got out of it. Anyway, we like the hat business pretty well and I wouldn't mind living on a sign except for getting hungry." So then Mr. Slinger Bull tried to make us take five dollars for our trouble, but we wouldn't take it because scouts don't accept money for that kind of a service. Anyway, it wasn't a service at all, it was just fun. I bet you never heard of anybody being marooned on a desert signboard before. CHAPTER THE LAST (THANK GOODNESS) IT HASN'T GOT ANY NAME Now that was the last adventure that we had that day. But we've had a lot since then. We picked our way up through the woods on the side of the ridge, using our compass, because we couldn't see far ahead. It was getting dark and the woods were awful still. Every time a twig cracked under us it seemed to make a loud noise. There were crickets chirping too. It kind of reminded me of Temple Camp after supper. We kept straight west because we knew that was where the tree was. I guess we all got sort of excited as we came up near to the top of the ridge. I said, "I'm glad the last part of our hike is through the woods. Maybe we had a lot of fun in Bridgeboro and in Little Valley, but the woods for me." Pretty soon we came out into the open and there in the dusk stood the great big tree all by itself. It seemed awful solemn like. Westy said, "_Look!_ Away off there in the east. See?" Oh, boy! Away, way, way off across the country we had come through was like a shaft of dust sticking right up into the sky. It was the searchlight on the Bridgeboro fire-house.