Roy Blakeley's roundabout hikeFitzhugh, Percy Keese
General
Roy Blakeley's roundabout hike
Fitzhugh, Percy Keese
Adventure stories; Boy Scouts of America -- Juvenile fiction; Hiking -- Juvenile fiction
“There was a five and a lot of naughts,” he said, “and now I’m sorry I
didn’t count them. Then after we get the reward we’ll find the will and
Mr. Bagley will get his land and he’ll sell it to Temple Camp--and do
you know what let’s do?”
“Break it to me gently,” I said.
“We’ll have about a thousand dollars anyway and we’ll build a troop
cabin in that new land, away off in the woods, and we won’t let anybody
come there. We’ll be kind of different from everybody at camp, hey?
Maybe we’ll let visitors come to see us--because I bet a lot of people
will want to see us, hey, especially girls. Even we’ll be _double_
heroes.”
Then he came up for air and he didn’t say any more till we got to camp,
only trudged along beside me very important. He was starting in being a
hero already. When we got to camp he went marching up and started
trampling out the little fire. I guess Dub and Sandy thought he was
crazy.
“What’s the idea?” Sandy wanted to know.
“I’ll tell you as soon as the fire is out,” Pee-wee said, very
mysterious like.
They looked at me and I just said, “Ask the kid, he’s the big hero
to-night.”
“I found the place where those bandits are hiding,” Pee-wee said. “We
have to be careful and not have any light. To-morrow morning we’re going
up to Bagley Center to tell the police.”
I said, “Don’t look at me, you heard what he said.”
I guess none of us slept very much that night, I know _I_ didn’t. I kept
hearing sounds all the time and once I thought somebody was creeping up
to our tent. I was sorry we didn’t go up to the village right away as
soon as we found that camp but the other fellows thought every one would
be in bed. I just lay there listening for sounds. Once I fell asleep and
I had a dream that I found old Mr. Bagley’s last will and I was just
going to go and give it to him when one of those bandits pointed a
pistol at me and was just going to shoot me when Pee-wee threw a tomato
at him and I started to run. Jiminies, when you travel with Pee-wee
there’s something doing even when you’re asleep.
He got us up at about five o’clock in the morning, you’d have thought we
were going to catch a train. I said, “I’d rather be a bandit, then I
wouldn’t have to get up so early.”
He said, “We better have strong coffee on account of what we’re going to
do.”
I was so sleepy I hardly knew what I was saying. I staggered up against
Dub--he was as bad as I was.
“How much is it--ten thousand dollars?” he stammered.
“You mean the reward?” I said. I didn’t know what I was saying I was so
sleepy. “Search me, all I know is it’s got a five and a lot of naughts.
I don’t even know if the naughts are in front of the five or after it.
It may be one five thousandth of a cent for all I know, we should worry,
where’s the coffee-pot? We’re all mixed up with so much money and I
haven’t got enough for an ice cream cone when we get to Bagley Center.
That’s one thing I don’t like about robbers, they get you up so early in
the morning.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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