Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike Part 18

"It would just be a waste of good rope," I said. "We'll stand a rock on the town and that will hold it here. Come on, official staff," I said, "get busy. You fellows fall into line. The next a.s.sault is on that house that Pee-wee pointed out. Am I right?"

They all lined it up with the tree so as to make sure.

"Now you watch us," I said to the girls.

"Oh, we'll watch you," one of them said. Then they all began to laugh again.

I said, "If you have patrols in the Girl Scouts, yours ought to be called the Laughing Hyenas. What's the idea?"

They didn't answer, only just stood there giggling. They ought to have a merit badge for giggling in the Girl Scouts.

"We think you're so funny," one of them said; "especially that little boy."

"Your village isn't so big if it comes to that," Pee-wee said.

"No, but it hasn't got coffee-pots and frying pans and old phonographs hanging all over it," one of them said, laughing all the while. "He looks like an ash wagon."

"That shows how much you know about scouting," the kid shouted. "Don't you know that scouts are supposed to cook their own meals?"

"And play their own music?" Dora Dane Daring said. "Do you take victrola lessons?"

I said, "He plays the shoe horn, also the gas pipe. He can even play on _Boys' Life_; that's the scouts' official organ."

She said, "_Most_ canary birds are musical."

"Yes," I said, "and parrots can laugh, too."

She said, "You ought to call it an A. B. C. hike instead of a B hike. If you're going to tear down any houses we'd like to see you do it."

"Everybody falls for the scouts--in all the houses," Pee-wee yelled.

That Daring girl just giggled and said, "Oh, isn't that just _wonderful?_"

So then I rounded up my army of invasion and I shouted, "Scouts and sprouts, I have squinted yonder tree with my trusty right eye and I find we have to cross neutral territory again. We have to go through that house over there----"

"The one with the roof of----" Pee-wee shouted.

I said, "That's the one, the one with the roof. Take a good look at that house; you'll see it has an inside as well as an outside."

"I can't see the inside," Dorry shouted.

"Can you see the outside?" I asked him. "Well, the inside is just inside of the outside. If you took the outside away there wouldn't be any inside. You can do that by algebra."

I said, "There are two stories in that house and we have to put some adventure into those stories."

Pee-wee shouted, "I'll go ahead and ring the bell and tell them we want to go through, hey? Because I know what to say." Then he said to the girls, "You can watch me if you want to. Maybe some time you'll be on a bee-line hike and want to go through a house and then you'll know just how to do."

One of them said, "Oh, thank you so much."

"The pleasure is ours," I told her. "If the civilized population wants to follow us, what do we care?"

Then I said, "Ready--_go_!"

We all marched across the green with Pee-wee ahead of us and those girls coming along behind, laughing. You couldn't blame them because the kid looked awful funny--very brave and bold. We all stopped on the walk in front of the house. It was a dandy big house; it looked like one of those houses that has a hall running straight through to the back.

That's the kind of neutral territory I like.

The kid marched straight up to the steps and up onto the porch and pushed the b.u.t.ton. "That's one thing you have to learn when you're a scout," he called down, "not to be afraid."

All of a sudden the front door opened and, _g-o-o-d night, magnolia_!

There was the biggest colored man I ever saw. He was about six feet tall and eight feet in circ.u.mference, or maybe it was the other way round, I don't know which. His face was so black that it would make a blackboard look pale. You could have written on that man's face with chalk, dandy.

He had on a kind of a uniform with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and his elbows stuck out on each side of him.

"Good night," Hunt said; "that's one mountain we didn't figure on."

I said, "I guess that's one of the Black Hills. I wonder how it got out of my geography."

Pee-wee looked like a kewpie doll in front of that man. The man just glared at him and then he said, good and loud, "Whatchue want here, you?"

Pee-wee said, "We--eh--we--does Mr. Smith live here--please?"

The big man said, "No, he don't. Whatchue want here?" He just glared down at the poor kid as if he were going to eat him.

Pee-wee said, kind of hesitating, "If--if we'd be willing to wipe our feet--maybe--would you be willing to let us go through this house--maybe?"

The big man glared down at him and then he said in a great big deep voice, "Looker here, you youngster! You want to get arrested, do you?

_You clear out of this!_ Whatchue mean comin' to folks' houses and say you like to go through, eh? You clear out of here, double quick, or I'll have you in de lockup!"

He banged the door shut and there stood Pee-wee trying to get his breath, I guess. Then he started down the steps again, the stuff in his big megaphone rattling like a junk wagon.

"Foiled!" I said.

CHAPTER XXIV

DARING DORA DANE

Oh, boy, you should have heard those girls laugh. Dora Dane Daring said, "Isn't that just too provoking? He didn't seem to be a bit afraid of you, did he?"

"Don't you know sometimes scouts have to use strategy?" Pee-wee said.

"Did you think I was going to--to--just _force_ my way in? Don't you know a scout has to be courteous?"

"It was so good of you not to hurt him," she said.

"Scouts are--they're kind," the kid said.

She said, "Yes, but you know they're invincible. I suppose you'll just go and ring the bell again?"