you know what I'm going to do?"

"Break it to us gently," Roy said.

"Some day soon I'm going to hike to Woodcliff and see that girl and find
out what that soldier's name is and I'm going to send the letter to his
mother."

"What's the use of doing that?" Vic Norris asked. "The soldier has
probably been home two years by now."

"I don't care," Pee-wee insisted; "the letter is to his mother and I'm
going to see that she gets it."

"Are you going to get a soda while you're up at Woodcliff?" Roy asked
him.

"That's all right," Pee-wee said with great vehemence; "if you got a
letter that went astray you'd want it, wouldn't you?"

"You're talking in chunks," Roy said. "Go ahead and see the girl if you
want to. I bet she'll think you're sweet. Only come ahead and let's get
to camp."

"Unanimously carried by a large majority," Dorry Benton said. "Mysteries
aren't going to buy tar-paper for our old car."

"There might have been a thousand dollars in this wallet," Pee-wee
reminded them.

"Except for one thing," Roy said.

"And what's that?" Pee-wee asked.

"That there wasn't," Roy said. "Put it in your pocket and come on."

Though they treated Pee-wee's find as something of a joke and attached
no significance to it, still the discovery of these old papers which had
now no meaning for anybody kept recurring to them as they made their way
to the old camp. But the consensus of opinion was that these old
mildewed remnants of another time were unimportant.

"What good is a letter when the fellow who sent it is already home?" Doc
Carson asked.

"What use is a leave of absence that expired two or three years ago?"
Connie Bennett added.

"If that fellow's away yet, he's overstaying his leave, that's sure,"
said Roy.

"What good is a Sunday dinner that somebody ate a couple of years ago?"
Doc queried.

"Maybe he's up there eating it yet," Will Dawson suggested.

"That's the way our young hero would do," said Roy.

"Do you mean to say it isn't important--that dinner?" Pee-wee demanded.

"Sure, all dinners are important," Roy said. "But one two years old
isn't much good. If it was only six months old I wouldn't say anything,
but _two years_--"

"You're crazy!" vociferated Pee-wee.

"Sure," said Roy, "one dinner is as important as another if not more so.
Deny it if you can."

"Anyway I'm going to see that girl," Pee-wee said.

"At dinnertime?" Roy asked slyly.

"I'm going to find out who that fellow is, I