Hervey just held up his finger to remind us, but anyway the man had gone too far to hear us. All of a sudden Pee-wee set up a shout, “I see Temple Camp! I see Temple Camp!”
“Where?” I asked him, all excited.
“I can see the pavilion!” he shouted. “I can see the lake! Hey, mister, come back with the ladder!”
“I guess you’re right,” Hervey said; “that’s the camp, all right.”
“I discovered it! I discovered it!” Pee-wee yelled. “Hey, mister, come back with that ladder! I can see Temple Camp! Come back!”
But it wasn’t any use; the man was too far away and the breeze was the other way, and there we were and we couldn’t do anything.
“Why didn’t you shout sooner?” Pee-wee wanted to know, all excited.
“You were the one to discover the camp,” Hervey said.
“Why didn’t you shout as soon as you saw the man?” he shot back.
“Because I made a solemn vow,” Hervey said.
“Now we’re up against it,” the kid said.
“We’re up, all right,” said Warde. “Nobody can deny that.”
“How are we going to get down?” Pee-wee wanted to know. “That’s what you get for making solemn vows. Solemny vows are all right but they don’t get you any supper. I can see the smoke going up from the cooking shack. Do you see it? Away, way off there?”
I could see it all right, and oh boy, it looked good. I could see just a little dab of blue, all sparkling, and I knew it was Black Lake. I could see a speck of brown and I knew it was the pavilion. It looked as if it might be about ten miles off. All around, no matter which way we looked, were woods and mountains.
“Some panorama,” Warde said.
“You can’t eat panoramas,” the kid shouted.
“Sure you can,” I told him. “Didn’t you ever eat an orama? They fry them in pans; that’s why they call them panoramas; they’re fine.”
“Yes, and we’ll be marooned here all night too,” he piped up. “There isn’t anybody for miles around. A lot of good the view is going to do us. This is the loneliest place I ever saw, I bet it’s haunted. I bet that’s why everybody moved away.”
Bert said, “I don’t believe any ghosts would stay here, it’s too lonely. Besides, where would they buy their groceries?”
“Ghosts don’t eat,” the kid said.
“I hope you’ll never be a ghost then,” I told him.
“We’re lucky,” Hervey said. “You ought to thank me for bringing you up here. We can see just where Temple Camp is. We don’t have to depend on sign posts that change their minds and turntables that send us back to where we came from or anything. We can see Temple Camp with our own eyes. Now we know which way to go.”
“Only we can’t go there,” I said.
He said, “That doesn’t make any difference.”
“Sure it doesn’t,” I said. “As long as we know where camp is we’re not lost any more. We know where we’re at. ............