(Cries of "No, you're crazy!") "But as long as I'm elected I'll take the job--and I'm very thankful. I won't deny I wanted it. Roy won't get any favors." (Cheers) "If I have any deciding to do I'll decide the way I think is right. That's all I've got to say--oh, yes, there's one thing more--one thing I made up my mind to in case I was lucky enough to get elected." (Cries of "Hear, hear!") "I'm not going to go by the railroad. I got an idea, like, that it doesn't took right for a scout to go to camp by train. So I'm going to hike it up to the camp. I'm going to start early enough so I can do it. When a scout steps off a train he looks like a summer boarder. I ask Roy to go with me if he can start when I do. I don't want you fellows to think I was expecting to be chosen. I didn't let myself think about it. But sometimes you can't help thinking about a thing; and the other night I said to myself that if anything should happen I should get elected----" (A voice, "You didn't do a thing but walk away with it, Tommy!") (Cries of "Shut up till he gets through!") "I wouldn't go to that camp in a train. I'm not going to set foot in it till I'm qualified for a first-class scout, and I'm going to do the rest of my stunts on the way. I want Roy to go with me if he can. I thank you for electing me. I'll do my best in that job. If I knew how to say it, I'd thank you better. I guess I'm kind of rattled." The blunt little speech was very characteristic of Tom and it was greeted with a storm of applause. He had a way of blurting out his plans and ideas without giving any previous hint of them, but this was something of a knockout blow. "Oh, you hit it right!" shouted Pee-wee. "Gee, I do hate railroad trains--railroad trains and homework." "You don't mean you're going to hike it from here, Tom, do you?" asked Mr. Ellsworth. "I had an idea I might canoe up as far as Nyack," said Tom, "and then follow the river up to Catskill Landing and hit in for Leeds--but, of course," he added, "I didn't really expect to be elected." "Oh, crinkums!" shouted Pee-wee. "I'll go with you!" "Well," said Roy, when the laughter had subsided, "this is a new wrinkle and it sounds rather risky for a half-baked Elk----" (Hisses from the Elks) "So far as I'm concerned, I think a hike of a hundred miles or so----" "You're crazy!" interrupted Pee-wee. "You silver-plated Fox----" "Is too much," concluded Roy. "In the first place, there would have to be a whole lot of discomfort." (Hisses) "A fellow would be pretty sure to get his feet wet." (Mr. Ellsworth restrained Pee-wee with difficulty.) "He would have to sleep out of doors in the damp night air----" (A voice, "Slap him on the wrist!") "And he would be likely to get lost. Scouts, it's no fun to be lost in the woods----" (Cries of "Yes, it is!") "We would be footsore and weary," continued Roy. "You got that out of a book!" shouted Pee-wee. "_Footsore and weary_--that's the way folks talk in books!"