utumn--except the spring. And the spring is only good because
it is the beginning of the summer. Just the same as the winter is best
because the spring comes after it. As Roy Blakeley would have said, "You
can do that by algebra." But there is nothing, either before or after,
to make algebra good.

As Jim Burton's big Packard car sped along, the country looked bleak and
the fields wan with their yellow corn-stalks. Even the little shacks
where fresh fruit and vegetables had been displayed to motorists were
now boarded up. Their cheerless, deserted look contributed quite as much
as the changing foliage to the scene of coldness, desolation. The sad
look which Nature assumes when school opens. The wind blew and the
leaves fell and the West Ketchem scouts fell too, for Scout Harris, who
was also blowing.

"That's what you call a proincidence, how I don't have to go to school
yet, the same as you don't on account of yours burning down. Gee whiz, I
like camp-fires, but I like school fires better."

"And you'll show us how to make a camp-fire?"

"Sure I will; 111 show you how they do at Temple Camp. Is there anybody
living on that island?"

"No one but us, and we'll have to be going home soon," said Charlie
Norris.

"I like desert islands best," Pee-wee said; "they remind you of dessert.
Sometimes I spell it that way. Don't you care, we have a month yet. Did
you ever eat floating island? It has gobs of icing floating around in
it. We have that Sunday nights at Temple Camp. When I said dessert it
made me think of it. Sometimes islands disappear."

"I bet the ones in that dessert do all right," laughed Nick Vernon.

"You said it!" Pee-wee vociferated with great emphasis. "I'll show you
how to make tracking cakes, too, only you can't eat them."

"No?"

"No-o-o, they're for chipmunks and birds to step on so you can save
their footprints. Gee whiz, did you think you could eat them?"

"We didn't know," said Fido Norris.

"Gee, there are lots of things _I_ don't know too," said Pee-wee
generously. "But anyway I fixed it so a scout could stay at Temple Camp
an extra week."

"Bully for you. A good turn?"

"You said it. I gave him a whole pail of berries I picked and he got
sick and couldn't go home."

"Some fixer."

"I've fixed lots of things."

"Maybe you can give us all berries the day before our temporary school
opens," said Fido Norton.

"Don't you worry," said Pee-wee reassuringly; "maybe the men who are
g