“RESOURCES”

The garage man said he would put a new fan belt on as soon as he finished work on another car. That, he said, would be about five o’clock. The belt would cost seventy cents and the labor of adapting it to the Ford would be fifty cents. They make you flat prices in the country and do things cheap.

Out of the two dollars and sixty cents which the travellers had earned they had spent a dollar and thirty-five cents for five gallons of gas. This left them a dollar and twenty-five cents. The repair would cost them one dollar and twenty cents which would leave them just exactly one nickel. They would be in no predicament, however, since they had gas enough to carry them to camp and food enough to carry them to the North Pole. Their poverty was on the goat’s conscience, if he had any.

Before leaving the garage they selected a light lunch out of their inexhaustible store, in procuring which Pee-wee strewed the floor and seat of the car with packages and canned goods.

“Never mind them now, we’ll pick them up later,” he said, as he selected a couple of bananas, a package with a few cookies in it, and several cakes of chocolate. “We won’t bother to cook any lunch, hey, because we’ll take a hike?”

“Yes, and cook when we get back.”

Thus hastily equipped with a “walking lunch” they sallied forth and, after rambling about the neighboring village, decided to hike down to the Hudson which their map showed to be about two miles distant.

“Let’s hire a boat and go for a row, hey?” said Pee-wee, munching his lunch as he trudged along at Townsend’s side.

“What, with five cents?” laughed Townsend. “What’s the use hiring one? Let’s buy one? We’ve got resources.”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” Pee-wee said. “Resources mean kind of in your brain, sort of. Like if I was starving in the woods—hunters, they can’t starve. They can eat herbs,—even bark off trees, they can. Gee whiz, you’re a patrol leader and you don’t know about those things. In the handbook it says how you don’t have to starve—ever—because there was a famous guide and he got lost and all his food was eaten by a—”

“A goat—”

“A bear.”

“His license and everything?”

“And he couldn’t find his way,” Pee-wee panted, eating a banana and trying to keep up with Townsend, “and he saw the bear sneaking off and then he knew which was the north, because mostly bears go south like in the night when they’re after food and so he was sneaking north—”

“He must have swallowed the man’s compass,” said Townsend. “That’s why he turned to the north.”

“And do you—you’re crazy—do you know what that man did? He ate wintergreen and sassafras and so he didn’t starve. He dug up roots, that’s what he did, and chewed them and some men that started for the North Pole ate leather, even. So you can’t starve—scouts can’t. Because nature is your slave, see?”

“What could be nicer?” said Townsend.

“And besides that,” said Pee-wee, working his mouth and legs to their full capacity, “you can’t famish because, do you know why? The stars—the big dipper—”

“Sure, I suppose you could drink out of that,” said Townsend.

“That shows how crazy you are!” roared Pee-wee. “You’re crazier than Roy Blakeley and he’s crazier than a whole insane asylum. The stars guide you, don’t you know that much? Do you know any stars?”

“Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin,” said Townsend thoughtfully; “let’s see, Mary Pickford—”

To do justice to his towering contempt, Pee-wee hurriedly swallowed a cookie he was eating and drew a long breath. “You’re a scout and head of our patrol and you don’t know the stars. Did you ever hear of Orion?”

“O’Brien?”

“No, Orion.”

“Eugene O’Rion, sure; he plays—”

“Orion, it’s a consolation!” roared Pee-wee.

“Never met him,” said Townsend.

“Gee whiz, if you were my unknown pal up at Memorial Cabin, I’d teach you some things this summer, I would. Suppose you got lost in the night away, way far away from home or—or—Bennett’s Confectionery or any place. What would you do? You’d sit down and get scared, I bet, and you’d get more scared when you got hungry. All the while right around you there might be lots and lots and lots of cones—pi—”

“Ice cream cones?” asked Townsend.

“No, pine cones, but you can eat the resin out of them. And besides, do you know when you keep going around and around and around in a circle?”

“When I’m on a merry-go-round?” ventured Townsend.

“No, when you’re lost. That’s why you always get back to the same place, see? So the way to do is to stay where you are and don’t get scared and send up a smoke signal only if the stars are out then you’re all right. If you haven’t got any matches you just—”

“Strike a resource on the sole of your shoe and get a light that way,” said Townsend. “Only it’s better to follow the consolations. Look, Kid, there’s the river.”