“We’ll cut right through the woods in back of it,” Warde said. I said, “Thank goodness, we’ll be home in fifteen minutes.” “Follow me and you can’t go wrong,” Hervey said. “I’m aiming straight for my place at the mess-board.” “Don’t aim for mine,” Pee-wee shouted at him. Then Hervey began singing: Some scouts prefer to hike around, We don’t, And cover miles and miles of ground, we don’t. And roam and roam and roam and roam, And roam some more and roam and roam; And never _never_ go back home, we don’t. “Look!” Pee-wee yelled at the top of his voice. “The smoke! Look! It’s way off there!” We all looked and _g-o-o-d night_, there was the column of smoke away, way to the north of us, and there, as sure as I’m sitting here writing, was that little house right straight ahead of us, about fifty yards off. “The plot grows thicker!” I said, just leaning limp against a tree. “We’ve been going farther and farther away from camp all the time. Chocolate Drop must be burning up refuse. Where are we at, anyway?” “The world is upside down!” Garry said. “It’s inside out,” Bert shouted. “That house right in front of us was in direct line with camp,” Warde said. “The Catskill Mountains are crazy!” Pee-wee shouted. “Remember the way they did with Rip Van Winkle? Everything is crazy! Where are we at? The nearer we get the farther we go. This country is haunted.” “Search me,” I said. “The sun must have set in the east, that’s the only way _I_ can explain it. That house there was _in a bee-line with the camp when we started_. I’ll leave it to Hervey.” “Don’t leave it to him,” Pee-wee shouted; “you’ll only make it worse. Do you think I want to land on the moon?” CHAPTER XXX WE FIGURE IT OUT I said, “Let’s sit down and think it over and figure it out by geometry; let’s not get excited. Three things were in a bee-line, the cooking shack and the house and we ourselves. Deny it if you can. The smoke died and we hiked straight for the house. Didn’t we? Now here we are almost at the house and the smoke is there again, and it’s the same chimney and it’s way out north of us and we’ve been hiking southwest. What’s the answer?” “It’s all because Hervey Willetts is leading us,” Pee-wee shouted. “If that fellow started to go across the street he’d end at—at—at South Africa—he would.” “Are we going to get lost again?” little Willie Cook piped up. “Again?” I said. “Excuse me while I laugh. We’ve got the babes in the woods beaten twenty-eleven ways. I wish we had a compass.” “I wouldn’t believe one if you had it,” Pee-wee shouted. “Let’s hustle and follow the smoke while it’s still going up,” Warde said. “It’s dying down!” Pee-wee shouted.