All the while we were rocking the boat so it would move around. The bow of it was chained so the stern swung around until the boat bobbed against the shore and was facing north instead of south, just like the boat I made with dotted lines on the map. So you see then the little trail was on our left. Hervey pushed the stake down into the bottom of the lake so the boat would stay that way. Brent said, “Thanks to Hervey Willetts now we can proceed upon our hike. We haven’t been around much lately. Shall we hit the trail?” “If I hit that trail as I’d like to hit it,” Pee-wee shouted. “I’d—I’d—I’d—give it—I’d give it two black eyes——” “It would be a blind trail,” Brent said. “You can turn to the left and go wherever you want to,” the kid shouted. “I’m going to sit right here in this boat, I don’t care anything about faces of nature——” “The least you could do would be to wash your own face,” Warde told him. “I’ll wash my hands of you and my face too,” the kid hollered. “I’m going to sit right here in this boat till I get good and rested, and then I’m going around to dinner. I resign from this crazy hike and you’re all lunatics.” Warde said, “Those are harsh words, Scout Harris.” The kid looked awful funny sitting there in the boat after the rest of us got out. He just sat there with a terrible scowl on his face, and his face was all grimy on account of falling in at the outlet. He was good and mad. The rest of us were standing on the shore watching him and we were just going to start up the daffodil trail (that’s what Warde called it) and turn to the left when all of a sudden we heard the sound of merry laughter echoing through the woods. My sister wrote that sentence about merry laughter echoing through the woods. I was going to write that we heard a couple of girls giggling somewhere around, I should worry, and that’s the end of this chapter. CHAPTER X THE PLOT GROWS THICKER—THE MUD TOO Now there’s one thing about Pee-wee, he always dresses up when there are going to be girls. He wears all his merit badges and his belt-axe so they’ll know he’s a real hero. He’s the only original boy scout heart-breaker. Girls always smile at him. Sometimes they even laugh out loud. So as soon as he heard the merry sound of girlish laughter in the neighboring woodland (my sister wrote that) he began to listen and then he grabbed the rag in the bottom of the boat so as to wash the dirt from his face.