I WAS sitting right that minute in a big white rowboat that was docked at the end of the pier which ran far out into the water of the lake. From where I was sitting, in the stern of the boat, I could see the two brown tents where the rest of the Sugar Creek Gang was supposed to be taking a short afternoon nap—which was one of the rules about camp life none of us liked very well, but which was good for us on account of we always had more pep for the rest of the day and didn’t get too tired before night.

I’d already had my afternoon nap, and had sneaked out of the tent and come to the dock where I was right that minute, to just sit there and imagine things such as whether there would be anything very exciting to see if some of the gang could explore that great big tree-covered island away out across the water, about a mile away.

Whew! it certainly was hot out here close to the water with the sunlight pouring itself on me from above and also shining up at me from below, on account of the lake was like a great big blue mirror that caught sunlight and reflected it right up under my straw hat, making my hot freckled face even hotter than it was. Because it was the style for the people to get tanned almost all over, I didn’t mind the heat as much as I might have.

It seemed to be getting hotter every minute though—the kind of day we sometimes had back home at Sugar Creek just before some big thunderheads came sneaking up and surprised us with a fierce storm. It was also a perfect day for a sunbath. What on earth made people want to get brown all over for anyway? I thought. Then I looked down at my freckled brownish arm, and was disgusted at myself, on account of instead of getting a nice tan like Circus, the acrobatic member of our gang, I always got sunburned and freckled and my upper arm looked like a piece of raw steak instead of a nice piece of brown fried chicken.... Thinking that, reminded me that I was hungry and I wished it was suppertime.

It certainly was a quiet camp, I thought, as I looked at the two tents, where the rest of the gang was supposed to be sleeping. I just couldn’t imagine anybody sleeping that long—anyway, not any boy—unless he was at home and it was morning and time to get up and do the chores.

Just that second I heard a sound of footsteps from up the shore, and looking up I saw a smallish boy with brownish curly hair coming toward me along the path that runs all along the shore line. I knew right away it was Little Jim, my almost best friend, and the grandest little guy that ever lived. I knew it was Little Jim not only ’cause he carried his ash stick with him, which was about as long as a man’s cane, but because of the shuffling way he walked. I noticed he was stopping every now and then to stoop over and look at some kind of wild flower, then he’d write something down in a book he was carrying which I knew was a wild flower Guide Book.

He certainly was an interesting little guy, I thought. I guess he hadn’t seen me, ’cause I could hear him talking to himself which is what he had a habit of doing when he was alone and there was something kinda nice about it that made me like him even better than ever. I think that little guy does more honest-to-goodness thinking than any of the rest of the gang, certainly more than Dragonfly, the pop-eyed member of our gang, who is spindle-legged and slim and whose nose turns south at the end; or Poetry, the barrel-shaped member who reads all the books he can get his hands on and who knows one hundred poems by heart and is always quoting poems; and also more than Big Jim, the leader of our gang who is the oldest and who has maybe seventeen smallish strands of fuzz on his upper lip which one day will be a mustache. I ducked my head down below the dock so Little Jim couldn’t see me, and listened, still wondering “What on earth!”

Little Jim stopped right beside the path that leads from the dock to the Indian kitchen which was close by the two brown tents, stooped down and said, “Hm! Wild Strawberry....” He leafed through the book he was carrying and with his eversharp pencil wrote something down. Then he looked around him and, seeing a Balm of Gilead tree right close to the dock with a five-leafed ivy on it, went straight to the tree and with his magnifying glass, began to study the ivy.

I didn’t know I was going to call out to him and interrupt his thoughts, which my mother had taught me not to do, when a person is thinking hard, on account of anybody doesn’t like to have somebody interrupt his thoughts.

“Hi, Little Jim!” I said from the stern of the boat where I was.

Say, that little guy acted as cool as a cucumber. He just looked slowly around in different directions, including up and down, then his bluish eyes looked absent-mindedly into mine, and for some reason I had the kindest, warmest feeling toward him. His face wasn’t tanned like the rest of the gang’s either, but was what people called “fair”; his smallish nose was straight, his little chin was pear-shaped, and his darkish eyebrows were straight across, his smallish ears were like they sometimes were—lopped over a little on account of that is the way he nearly always wears his straw hat.

When he saw me sitting there in the boat, he grinned and said, “I’ll bet I’ll get a hundred in nature study in school next fall. I’ve found forty-one different kinds of wild flowers.”

I wasn’t interested in the study of plants at all, right that minute, but in some kind of an adventure instead, so I said to Little Jim, “I wonder if there are any different kinds of flowers over there on that island, where Robinson Crusoe had his adventures.” Little Jim looked at me without seeing me, I thought, then he grinned and said, “Robinson Crusoe never saw that island.”

“Oh yes, he did! He’s looking at it right this very minute and wishing he could explore it and find a treasure or something,” meaning I was wishing I was Robinson Crusoe myself.

Just that second a strange voice piped up from behind some sumac on the other side of the Balm of Gilead tree and said, “You can’t be a Robinson Crusoe and land on a tropical island without having a shipwreck first, and who wants to have a wreck?”

I knew right away it was Poetry, even before I saw his barrel-shaped body shuffle out from behind the sumac and I saw his fat face, and his pompadour hair and his heavy eye brows that grew straight across the top of his nose, like he had just one big longish eyebrow instead of two like most people have.

“You are a wreck,” I called to him, and didn’t mean it, but we always liked to have word fights, which we didn’t mean and always liked each other better all the time.

“I’ll leave you guys to fight it out,” Little Jim said to us. “I’ve got to find nine more kinds of wild flowers,” and with that, that little chipmunk of a guy shuffled on up the shore swinging his stick around and stooping over to study some new kind of flower he spied every now and then.

And that’s how Poetry and I got our heads together to plan a game of Robinson Crusoe, not knowing we were going to run into one of the strangest adventures we’d had in our whole lives.

“See here,” Poetry said, grunting himself down and sliding down off the side of the dock and into the boat where I was, “if we play Robinson Crusoe, we’ll have to have one other person to go along with us.”

“But there were only two of them,” I said, “—Robinson Crusoe himself and his man Friday, the colored boy who became his slave, and whom Crusoe saved from being eaten by the cannibals, and who, after he was saved, did nearly all Crusoe’s work for him.”

“All right,” Poetry said, “I’ll be Crusoe, and you be his Man Friday.”

“I will not,” I said. “I’m already Crusoe. I thought of it first, and I’m already him.”

Poetry and I frowned at each other, almost half mad for a minute until his fat face brightened up and he said, “All right, you be Crusoe, and I’ll be one of the cannibals getting ready to eat your man Friday, and you come along and rescue him.”

“But if you’re going to be a cannibal, I’ll have to shoot you, and then you’ll be dead,” I said.

That spoiled that plan for a jiffy, until Poetry’s bright mind thought of something else, which was, “didn’t Robinson Crusoe have a pet goat on the island with him?”

“Sure,” I said, and Poetry said, “All right, after you shoot me, I’ll be the goat.”

Well that settled that, but which one of the gang should be the colored slave, whom Robinson Crusoe saved on a Friday and whom he named his Man Friday, we couldn’t decide right that minute.

It was Poetry who thought of a way to help us decide which other one of the gang to take along with us.

“Big Jim is out,” I said, “’cause he’s too big and would want to be the leader himself, and Robinson Crusoe has to be that.”

“And Circus is out, too,” Poetry said, on account of he’s almost as big as Big Jim.

“Then there’s only Little Jim, Dragonfly and Little Tom Till left,” I said, and Poetry said, “Maybe not a one of them’ll be willing to be your Man Friday.”

We didn’t have time to talk about it any further, ’cause right that second Dragonfly came moseying out toward us from his tent, his spindling legs swinging awkwardly and his crooked nose and dragonfly-like eyes making him look just like a ridiculous Friday afternoon, I thought.

“He’s the man I want,” I said. “We three have had lots of exciting adventures together, and he’ll be perfect.”

“But he can’t keep quiet when there’s a mystery. He always sneezes just when we don’t want him to.”

Right that second, Dragonfly reached the pier and let the bottoms of his bare feet go ker-plop, ker-plop, ker-plop on the smooth boards, getting closer with every “ker-plop.”

When he spied Poetry and me in the boat at the end, he stopped like he had been shot at, and looked down at us and said with an accusing voice, “You guys going on a boat ride? I’m going along!”

I started to say, “Sure, we want you,” thinking how when we got over to the island, we could make a slave out of him as easy as pie.

But Poetry beat me to it by saying, “There’s only one more of the gang going with us, and it might not be you.”

Dragonfly plopped himself down on the edge of the dock, swung one foot out to the gunwale of the boat, caught it with his toes, pulled it toward him, swished himself in and sat down in the seat behind Poetry. “If anybody goes, I go, or I’ll scream and tell the rest of the gang, and nobody’ll get to go.”

I looked at Poetry and he looked at me and our eyes said to each other, “Now what?”

“Are you willing to be eaten by a cannibal?” I asked, and he got a puzzled look in his eyes. “There’re cannibals over there on that island—one, anyway—a great big fat barrel-shaped one that—”

Poetry’s fist shot forward and socked me in my ribs, which didn’t have any fat on them, and I grunted and stopped talking at the same time. “We’re going to play Robinson Crusoe,” Poetry said, “and whoever goes’ll have to be willing to do everything I say—I mean everything Bill says.” “Please,” Dragonfly said. “I’ll do anything.”

Well that was a promise, but Poetry wasn’t satisfied. He pretended he wanted Tom Till to go along, on account of he liked Tom a lot and thought he’d make a better Man Friday than Dragonfly.

“We’ll try you out,” Poetry said, and caught hold of the dock with his hands and climbed out of the boat, all of us following him.

“We’ll have to initiate you,” Poetry explained, as we all swished along together. “We can’t take anybody on a treasure hunt who can’t keep quiet when he’s told to, and who can’t take orders without saying ‘WHY?’”

“Why?” Dragonfly wanted to know, and grinned, but Poetry said with a very serious face, “It isn’t funny,” and we went on.

“What’re you going to do?” Dragonfly wanted to know, as we started to march him along with us up the shore to the place where we were going to initiate him. I didn’t know myself where we were going to do it, but Poetry seemed to know exactly what to do and where to go and why, so I acted like I knew too, Poetry making me stop to pick up a great big empty gallon can that had had prunes in it, the gang having to eat prunes for breakfast nearly every morning on our camping trip.

“What’s that for?” Dragonfly wanted to know, and Poetry said, “That’s to cook our dinner in.”

“You mean—you mean—me!”

“You!” Poetry said, “Or you can’t be Bill’s Man Friday.”

“But I get saved, don’t I?” Dragonfly said with a worried voice.

“Sure, just as soon as I get shot,” Poetry explained.

“And then you turn into a goat,” I said to Poetry, as he panted along beside us, “and right away you eat the prune can!”

With that, Poetry smacked his lips like he had just finished eating a delicious tin can. Then he leaned over and groaned like it had given him a stomach-ache.

Right that second, I decided to try Dragonfly’s obedience, so I said, “All right, Friday, take the can you’re going to be cooked in and fill it half full of lake water!”

There was a quick scowl on Dragonfly’s face, which said, “I don’t want to do it.” He shrugged his scrawny shoulders lifted his eyebrows and the palms of his hands at the same time, and said, “I’m a poor heathen; I can’t even understand English; I don’t want to fill any old prune can with water.”

With that, I scowled, and said to Poetry in a fierce voice, “That settles that! He can’t take orders. Let’s send him home!”

Boy, did Dragonfly ever come to life in a hurry. “All right, all right,” he whined, “give me the can!” He grabbed it out of my hand, made a dive toward the lake which was still close by us, dipped the can in and came back with it filled clear to the top with nice clean water.

“Here, Crusoe,” he puffed. “Your Man Friday is your humble slave.” He extended the can toward me.

“Carry it yourself!” I said.

And then, all of a sudden, Dragonfly set it down on the ground where some of it splashed over the top onto Poetry’s shoes, and Dragonfly got a stubborn look on his face and said, “I think the cannibal ought to carry it. I’m not even Friday yet—not till the cannibal gets killed.”

Well, he was right, so Poetry looked at me, and I at him, and he picked up the can, and we went on till we came to the boathouse, which if you’ve read “The Sugar Creek Gang Goes North,” you already know about.

It was going to be fun initiating Dragonfly—just how much fun I didn’t know—and I certainly didn’t know what a mystery we were going to run into in less than fifteen minutes of the next half hour.

In only a little while we came to Santa’s boathouse, Santa as you maybe know being the barrel-shaped owner of the property where we had pitched our tents. He also owned a lot of other lakeshore property up here in this part of the Paul Bunyan country. Everybody called him Santa ’cause he was round like all the different Santa Clauses we’d seen and was always laughing.

Santa himself with his big laughing voice called to us when he saw us coming and said, “Well, well, if it isn’t Bill Collins, Dragonfly and Poetry,” Santa being a smart man, knowing that if there’s anything a boy likes to hear better than anything else, it’s somebody calling him by his name.

“Hi,” we all answered him, Poetry setting the prune can of water down with a savage sigh like it was too heavy to stand and hold.

Santa was standing beside his boathouse door, with a hammer in one hand and a handsaw in the other.

“Where to, with that can of water?” he asked us, and Dragonfly said, “We’re going to pour the water in a big hole up there on the hill and make a new lake.”

Santa grinned at all of us with a mischievous twinkle in his bluish eyes, knowing Dragonfly hadn’t told any lie but was only doing what most boys do most all the time anyway—playing “Make-believe.”

“May we look inside your boathouse a minute?” Poetry asked, and Santa said, “Certainly, go right in,” which we did, and looked around a little.

Poetry acted very mysterious, like he was thinking about something very important, while he frowned with his fat forehead, and looked at different things such as the cot in the farther end, the shavings and sawdust on the floor, and the carpenter’s tools above the work bench—which were chisels, screwdrivers, saws, planes and also hammers and nails; also Poetry examined the different kinds of boards made out of beautifully grained wood.

“You boys like to hold this saw and hammer a minute?” Santa asked us, and handed a hammer to me and a saw handle to Dragonfly, which we took, not knowing why.

“That’s the hammer and that’s the saw the kidnapper used the night he was building the gravehouse in the Indian cemetery,” Santa said, and I looked and felt puzzled, till he explained, saying, “The police found them the night you boys caught him.”

“But—how did they get there?” I asked, but Poetry answered me by saying, “Don’t you remember, Bill Collins, that we found this boathouse door wide open that night, with the latch hanging? The kidnapper stole ’em.”

I looked at the hammer in my hand, and remembered, and tried to realize that the hammer handle I had in my hand right that minute was the same one that, one night last week, had been in the wicked hand of a very fierce man who had used it in an Indian cemetery to help him build a gravehouse. Also, the saw in Poetry’s hand was the one the man had used to saw pieces of lumber into the right lengths.

“And here,” Santa said, lifting a piece of canvas from something in the corner, “is the little, nearly-finished gravehouse. The lumber was stolen from here also. The police brought it out this morning. They’ve taken fingerprints from the saw and hammer.”

“Why on earth did he want to build an Indian gravehouse?” I asked, looking at the pretty little house that looked like a longish chicken coop, like we have at home at Sugar Creek, only twice as long, almost. Dragonfly spoke up then and said, “He maybe was going to bury the little Ostberg girl there.”

But Poetry shook his head, “I think he was going to bury the ransom money there, where nobody in the world would guess to look.”

Well, we had to get going with our game of Robinson Crusoe, which we did, all of us feeling fine to think that last week we had had a chance to catch the kidnapper, even though the ransom money was still missing.