He rose and went down into the cabin where the dollar watch which hung on a nail told him that it was eight o'clock. Then it occurred to him that it would serve them right if he got his own supper and was in his bunk and asleep when they returned. It would be a sort of revenge on them. He would show them, at least, that he could get along very well by himself, and by way of doing so he would make some rice cakes. Roy was not the only one who could make rice cakes. He, Pee-wee, could make them if nobody stood by guying him. He had never wielded the flopper; that had been Roy's province; but he could, all right, he told himself. So he dug into Roy's duffel bag for the recipe book which was famous in the troop; which told the secrets of the hunter's stew; which revealed the mystery of plum-duff and raisin pop-overs in all their luscious details and which set you on the right path for the renowned rice cakes. Between the leaves, right where the rice cake recipe revealed itself to the hungry inquirer, was a folded paper which dropped out as Pee-wee opened the book. For all he knew it contained the recipe so he held it under the lantern and read: "Dear Mary: "Since you butted in, Tom and I have decided that it would be better for Pee-wee to go with _him_, and I'll stay home. Anyway, that's what I've decided. So you'll get your wish all right and I should worry. "Roy." Pee-wee read it twice over, then he laid it on the locker and sat down and looked at it. Then he picked it up and read it over again. He did not even realize that its discovery among Roy's things would indicate that it had never been sent. Sent or not, it had been written. So this was the explanation of Roy's invitation that he accompany them on the trip. Mary Temple had asked them to let him go. Yet, despite his present mood, he could not believe that his own patrol leader, Roy Blakeley, could have written this. "I bet Tom Slade is--I bet he's the cause of it," he said. He recalled now how he had talked about the trip to Mary Temple and how she had spoken rather mysteriously about the possibility of his going along. So it was she who was his good friend; it was to her he owed the invitation which had come to him with such a fine air of sincerity. "I always--crinkums, anyway girls always seem to like me, that's one thing," he said. "And--and Roy did, too, before Tom Slade came into the troop." It was odd how he turned against Tom, making him the scapegoat for Roy's apparent selfishness and hypocrisy. "They just brought me along for charity, like," he said, "'cause she told them to. Cracky, anyway, I didn't try to make her do that--I didn't." This revelation in black and white of Roy's real feeling overcame him and as he put the letter back in the book and the book back in the duffel bag, he could scarcely keep his hand from trembling. "Anyway, I knew it all the time," he said. "I could see it."