FAMINE

I said, “All right, we accept the offer.”

“Just sit around and make yourselves at home,” the man said. Then he went around the side of the house.

Jiminies, we didn’t know what to make of that man. He was nice and sociable, and he seemed to be always trying not to laugh, and everybody knows that fat people are good-natured. And he seemed kind of to like us, too. Then why didn’t he let us go through his house? That was what I wanted to know. If he had just been grouchy and ordered us off his place we wouldn’t have been so surprised. But if he liked us well enough to go to some trouble on account of us, then why wouldn’t he let us just go through his house?

I said, “We should worry. It won’t be the first roof I climbed over. Only I don’t understand it, that’s all.”

“It’s a mystery,” Pee-wee said. “Maybe he’s got some kind of a plot. Hey?”

“Maybe he just wants to see if we can make good,” Westy said.

Hunt said, “We’ll give him a demonstration, all right.”

“Maybe he meditates treachery,” the kid said. I guess he got those words out of the movies.

“Well,” I said, “we’re here because we’re here and we’re going to stay here and see it through.”

Pretty soon the plot grew thicker. We could hear that man talking over the telephone in the house. He was saying, “Yes, get here as soon as you can; a big haul.”

“We’re going to get hauled in,” Pee-wee said. “He’s calling up the police. What shall we do?” He looked frightened.

I said, “Stay right here; we’re not quitters.”

Then we could hear the man saying more. Gee williger, it had me guessing. He said, “Yes—yes. Oh, we could release them in a couple of months.”

“Did you hear what he said?” Pee-wee whispered. “They’ll release us in a couple of months. Come on, let’s get out of here. What do you think it means?”

I said, “I don’t know what it means. This man has me guessing. But we haven’t done anything wrong. This is the Bee-line hike. Are we going to see it through or not?”

“We are!” they all said.

“All right,” I said; “over the roof for us.”

Dorry said, “I guess if Warde Hollister saw us now he’d say we’re up against a real adventure.”

“All he wants is to be a movie actor,” Pee-wee said. “That’s what he told me. He said scouts were just kids. I bet he’d have to admit that this is a dark mystery, all right.”

Dorry said, “I know that man’s name all right, it’s Copley. Often I see him at the station.”

“I knew he had something to do with cops,” Hunt said. “I wonder how soon we’ll know what’s up his sleeve.”

“I wonder how soon he’ll pass the cake,” Pee-wee said.

Anyway we didn’t have to wait long for the refreshments. Mrs. Copley came out and passed around cake and cookies and things and she was nice and friendly. And while we were sprawling around on the porch eating, a man came around with a couple of ladders.

Mrs. Copley said, “I’ll just lay this plate of cookies on the table and you boys can help yourselves while you’re waiting for Mr. Copley to come out.” Then she put the plate on a little wicker table over near the end of the porch. After that she went in the house.

Pee-wee said, “Those cookies are good, I’m going to have a couple more.”

“Don’t go over to the end of the porch,” I told him. “We have to stay right here in front of the door; this is where the bee-line is.”

“The bee-line can have a branch to it while we’re waiting,” the kid said. “Maybe the bee-line might be wider than you think—maybe.”

“The bee-line runs just this side of those cookies,” I said.

“You’re a fine kind of a leader,” he said, “to let her stand that plate over there. Is that what you call tactics?”

I said, “Why didn’t you take a half dozen cookies when she passed them around the same as the rest of us did? You only took one.”

“You don’t call that tactics, do you?” Westy asked him.

“I’ve got some manners,” the kid said.

I said, “Well, you haven’t got any cookies. Look here.” Then I showed him about a half a dozen. Oh, boy, they were nice and brown and crisp and they had nuts in them. The fellows all had about as many as a dozen cookies each, because Mrs. Copley had said, “Oh, do take more, I’m sure you’re a hungry lot of scouts.”

Pee-wee sat there on one of the steps watching us eat cookies. Every time he moved I said, “You stay right where you are. Remember, this is a bee-line hike.”

Westy said, “These cookies are mighty good.”

I said, “M—mmm, that’s what they are.”

Hunt said, “They’re about the best I ever tasted. I’ve got eleven left.”

“I bet they were just cooked,” Dorry said.

I said, “Well, here goes another.”

Will Dawson said, “That’s one thing I like about the Raven Patrol; they have such good manners.”

Pee-wee said, “Do you mean to tell me a bee-line can’t have a—a—kind of a side track to it? Especially when we’re sitting still?”

“Oh, positively not,” I said. “A bee-line hasn’t even got any waves or wrinkles in it. It’s just as straight as a line drawn right through the middle of this cookie.”

“Or this one,” Westy said.

I said, “Yes, but this one is bigger. Do you see this cookie, Kid? Do you see that nut sticking up out of the end of it? Now suppose I draw a straight line——”

“You make me tired!” the kid yelled, and he started to get up.

“My official staff will be seated,” I said.

“You call this a kind of an army, don’t you?” the kid shouted. “Do you mean to tell me that we can’t make a flank movement?”

“Couldn’t be did,” I said; “remember your solemn pledge. Your duty is to stay as near to your beloved leader as you can. You just notice how these fellows obey me; now watch. Every scout will take a cookie in his right hand. When I say three they will start to eat. One, two, three. A scout is obedient——”

“You mean a scout is resourceful,” the kid shouted, jumping to his feet. All of a sudden he grabbed the coil of rope we had and, good night, if he didn’t lasso the table and drag it over to him!

Just as he pulled the table within reach and was starting to fill his pockets with cookies, we heard some one call.

“Still! Just a minute! Don’t move!”

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