iver and past the old ramshackle buildings there and right
over the village of Little Valley to the ridge. That big tree stood up
higher than all the others and it seemed just as if it were all alone
off there. I guess it was about one o'clock then.

I said, "We're going to cook some eats as soon as we get to the river,
because we like to eat near where there's water. Then we'll have to
think how we'll get across."

"Did you come straight all the way from your house?" Warde wanted to
know.

"Just as straight as we could," I said. "If we side-stepped anything we
didn't mean to. There's no use saying you're going to do a thing, and
then kid yourself about it and not do it. Maybe a bee-line hike is kind
of crazy, but it's hard, too. It's easy to make yourself think the line
runs between two houses when it doesn't. It's sort of the same when you
get to be a scout. It's like a bee-line hike--sort of."

We all just sat there and nobody said anything until Westy said, "That's
right."

"Maybe you don't understand," Dorry said.

Warde said, "Yes, I do understand."

After that nobody said anything, not even Pee-wee, and we just sat
there.

"Sure you can go with us," I told him. "And just as I said, you'll see
we're kind of crazy. But just the same we don't sneak around and we
don't turn back; not till we have to, anyway. You can join the scouts
just for the fun of it if you want; the same as you can start on a
bee-line hike and go zigzagging around the easiest way if you want to.
Maybe you don't understand just exactly what I mean," I said to him.
"Anyway there's a place to be filled in my patrol."

"Could I get in--maybe?" he asked.

I said, "Sure you could. Who's stopping you? Even one of our fellows
came after you, didn't he? And you see for yourself how the movie people
come after _us_. You don't see us running after them. They know where
adventures are, all right."

"And no war tax either," Westy said.

"And plenty of eats," Pee-wee piped up.

Then for a little while again none of us said anything.

CHAPTER XI

EATS

So that's how Warde Hollister got to be a Silver-plated Fox. Already he
has four merit badges and he's crazy like the rest of us, only more so.
If he keeps on, maybe he'll be as crazy as I am because I wasn't so
crazy when I started.

And that shows how you never can tell what you may run into on a
bee-line hike. But when it comes to running into things just you wait
till you get