ring girl," I said. And then we told him all
about it.

"Don't ever give up, that's the thing," Dorry said.

"Do you know who you remind me of?" Pee-wee asked Warde. We were all
sitting around on the rocks at the foot of the cliff, taking a rest.

"No, who?" Warde asked him.

"A frog," the kid said.

"A _frog_?" I asked him.

"Sure," he said; "a frog in a story."

"I'd be pleased to meet him," Warde said.

"There were two frogs," the kid said, "and they were out for a walk, and
do you know how one of them didn't get killed?"

"Break it to us gently," I said.

"They fell into a bucket of cream," the kid said.

"Was it ice cream?" Hunt asked him.

"It was rich cream," the kid said.

"It was wealthy cream," I said; "go ahead."

"They started to drown," the kid said, "and one of them got discouraged
and lost his nerve and didn't try to swim any more and he was drowned."

"Very sad," Westy said.

"The other one kept swimming and swimming and kicking and kicking," the
kid said, "and do you know what happened?"

"Can't imagine," Warde said.

"Just by kicking and kicking," the kid said, "he churned some of that
cream into butter and pretty soon he was standing all safe on a little
island of butter. So that's what he got for not giving up."

"Did he tell you that himself?" I asked him.

"You make me tired," he shouted.

Westy said, "Well, this isn't getting us up the ridge, is it? What do
you say we start?"

I said to the kid, "Are you sure that was real butter, or was it just
butterine? The Island of Butterine, discovered by a frog scout of the
Pollywog Patrol."

"If we start jollying Pee-wee we'll never get up the ridge," one of the
fellows said. So then we started.

Now from the desert island of Butterine (just under the cliff) to the
ridge was maybe as much as a half a mile. For a little way the land was
flat and open and then the ridge began. We would have to go up the side
of the ridge. What I mean by a ridge is a long hill, oh, as much as
several miles long. We knew a road ran along on the top of that ridge.
For a little way we could see the big tree up there. Then, as we came
closer to the ridge we couldn't see it on account of the woods.

Now the next adventure we had was before we came to the base of the
ridge. I told you there were open fields and the railroad ran north and
south. Until we reached the tracks we could see the tree. Pretty soon
after that we had to use our compass going