He became
excited easily and would sometimes seem almost at the point of crying.
He would throw down his saw or hammer in a kind of despair.

But these traits were not noticeable except in the working hours and not
always then. The boys kept up the fiction of his leadership, conferring
with him and consulting him about everything. And with open hearts they
took him into their scout life and liked him immensely.

The nearest they could get to a solution of his peculiarities was that
he was not well and that a long course of unemployment and privation had
resulted in his losing his grip. They took him as they found him, like
the good scouts that they were, and their enterprise to earn a little
money for improving their picturesque meeting-place at home seemed
transformed into a collective, splendid good turn in which their scout
loyalty shone like a light.

And so the days of strenuous, cheerful toil, and the nights around the
companionable blaze, passed, and Blythe who seemed always fearful and
apprehensive of something appeared to be haunted with a kind of dread
that this remote and pleasant rustic life would come to an end.

"We won't be finished next week?" he would say with a kind of simple air
of wishing to put off that evil time. "You don't think so, do you?" And
Pee-wee would answer, "That's all right, you leave it to me. I'll fix
it."

And evidently he did succeed in fixing it, for it rained steadily for
three days.

CHAPTER XII

THREE'S A COMPANY

And now, since the sun had reappeared and they had decided to take
things a little easier, Pee-wee announced his intentions of going on a
pilgrimage to Woodcliff to hunt up the mysterious Helen Shirley Bates,
and to ascertain from her the address of her soldier friend whom she had
entertained at dinner during the war. For it was on Pee-wee's conscience
that the soldier who had lost his wallet had written a letter to his
mother somewhere or other and that this had never reached its
destination.

"Are you going to wear your Sunday uniform?" Roy asked. For Pee-wee kept
a special suit of scout khaki for ceremonial occasions. Upon the sleeve
of this were his merit badges.

On this notable pilgrimage, knowing the weakness of young ladies for
official regalia, he wore also his canteen (empty), his scout axe--to
hew his way into her presence perhaps--a coil of rope dangling from his
belt, his scout scarf tied in the celebrated "raven knot" and his hat
ins