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
“Sure I care,” I told him. “But if you had got drowned it would have
been your own fault.”
“Oh, cut it out,” Dub said. “What’s over is over.”
“Sure,” I said, “our being a Star Patrol is over--you said it. He’s as
good as Pee-wee for fixing things.”
“How about you?” Will said. “Didn’t you go off on a three day leave with
other Scouts? Do you call that being a patrol leader?”
Gee, but I was good and mad. I said, “Listen here, Will. If I hadn’t
gone off like that and got in with those fellows, Dub and I wouldn’t
have been here to-night, if it comes to that. And where would _you_ be
now. I’d like to know?”
Dub said, trying to smooth things over, “That’s what Pee-wee would call
a dandy argument.”
“Please don’t talk to me at all,” I said to Will. “As long as you’ll get
chased home to-morrow morning what’s the use of scrapping? All you had
to get was bird study and carpentry to be a Star Scout, and you know as
well as I do that a Star Scout means a Star Patrol. You had to go and
throw mud on the parade. Jiminies, nobody ever heard me shouting about
the rules--I’ve broken some of them and I’ve bent a few others--but when
you know blamed well that you can’t take a boat back at night without
being nailed, _jimmy Christmas_, what’s the idea of doing that?”
Will said, “Oh I could have pulled it up in the bushes before I got to
the float, couldn’t I?”
“Couldn’t you?” I shouted at him. “No you _couldn’t you_! Do you want to
gather up some sticks or don’t you? It’s all the same to me.”
We all started picking up sticks for the fire and none of us spoke to
each other--some merry party. Dub was kind of funny the way he went
around picking up sticks not saying anything. I guess he was surprised
because he never saw me like that before. Once, after we got the fire
started, I saw how he winked and made a funny face at Will. A lot I
cared, I was so good and mad. The more Dub saw how mad I was, the more
he kept kidding me about it, winking at Will and acting--you know how.
He said, “As long as you feel so much like roasting I wish we had some
potatoes and we’d roast them.”
“Do you blame me?” I said. “You’re all alone up here, so you don’t have
to be thinking about your patrol. But if you knew more about Temple Camp
you’d know that a scout honor is a patrol honor. And a scout black eye
is a patrol black eye--you ask any Scout up here.” Dub said, “As Pee-wee
would say, it shows how much I don’t know. All I can say is that if
Temple Camp wants to teach me anything it better be quick about it. It
will have to do it by Saturday.”
“Temple Camp will take care of him first,” I said, looking at Will.
By that time the two of them were standing close to the fire, turning
round and round so as to get dry. I kept putting sticks on it. I
couldn’t help it, I had to smile at Dub, the funny way he kept turning
around. He wouldn’t let on that he was trying to make me laugh. He said,
“When I go home I can tell my mother I went around a lot up at Temple
Camp.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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