he's human!" I said. "Doesn't he smoke cigarettes and jolly the
freaks, and wink at us and all that? _Sure_ he's human-he's _especially
human!_"

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE WOODS

So you see it's best to always think twice before you do a good turn. Don't
be in too much of a hurry about it. Because a good turn might go wild and
cause a lot of trouble. You've got to take a good aim.

As long as Jib Jab had told us we'd always be welcome, Harry said, it would
be best for him and Dorry and I to wait till the show was over that night
and then go in and make a call on him. So he told the fellows that we'd
hang around in the woods for one more day and hike it for Newburgh in the
morning. He said that would give us a chance to get some provisions in
Kingston and to stalk in the mountains. They all liked the idea, only Brent
Gaylong said his fellows didn't have many eats and they didn't want to be
sponging on us.

Harry said, "We're all one family and I'm sick of this Silver Fox outfit,
anyway. It'll help to vary the monotony." That was always the way he
talked.

In the afternoon I took a walk through the woods with Brent Gaylong and the
little fellow he called Willie Wide-awake. He was a nice little fellow. He
found a four-leaf clover and he said, "Maybe that will change our luck."

I said, "Maybe; you never can tell." And, oh' boy, didn't I just laugh to
myself. _You wait_, that's what I said to myself.

Gaylong said, "The trouble with us fellows is that we started our great and
glorious troop during the war. Everybody was organizing troops--France,
Germany, Uncle Sam, Italy--and we got lost in the shuffle. Too much
competition. We'll land rightside up yet. But when I look over that scout
magazine and see all the ads of things scouts want, it sort of makes me
discouraged. Knives, cameras, bicycles, canoes, magic lanterns, toy steam
engines, tin railroads, fancy memorandum books, electric motors, I suppose
I'm behind the times, but just about all we want is a little place to meet
in, and our scoutmaster back again and the price of a welcome for him,
that's all. That, and the woods."

"You said it," I told him. "You should worry about all those ads; they
have nothing to do with scouting. All they've got to do with scouting is
that they're good to kindle a camp-fire with. Scouting doesn't cost
anything when you once get started."

"It would cost about ten dollars a minute if some people had their way,"
he said.

"