When I recovered from winning the laughing badge I said, “What’s the idea, Kiddo? Did you think you could win the forestry badge by being lost in the forest?” “Don’t listen to him, he’s crazy,” Pee-wee shouted at Willie Cook.
I said, “The next thing you’ll be trying to win the electricity badge by being struck by lightning.” Our young tenderfoot hero, Scout Cook, said, “If I can do Tests Five and Eight I’ll be a second-class scout. It’s all right if you give them good measure, isn’t it?”
I said, “Sure, but I wouldn’t give them a whole world tour for a two mile hike in these days of the high cost of hiking. Test Five says you must hike a mile and back. You must have hiked about a dozen miles. What are you going to do now?”
“Are you sure I’m a mile away from camp?” he asked me.
“Positively guaranteed,” I told him. “You’ll find out before you get back.”
“I’m going to do two tests at once,” he said.
“Boy, but you’re reckless,” Garry said. “What’s the other test?”
He said, “It’s Test Eight. I’ve got to cook this meat and these potatoes. See? And I’m going to put my initials on a tree to prove I hiked this far, and I’m going to take the food back to prove I cooked it. Because you have to prove things, don’t you?”
“Ask Scout Harris,” I said; “he’s in your patrol. He knows all about laws and food and everything.”
Gee whiz, I knew those two tests well enough—Five and Eight. One says a scout must go a mile—scout pace he’s supposed to go. The other says he must cook a quarter of a pound of meat and two potatoes without any cooking utensils. That kid had about a dozen potatoes and a couple of pounds or so of meat, ready to cook.
“Where did you get all this?” I asked him.
“I bought them at a butcher’s in Berryville and if I cook them and take them back will I be a second-class scout?”
“Positively guaranteed,” I told him. “The more you take back the more of a scout you’ll be. Ask Scout Harris.”
“They’re all crazy,” Pee-wee told him; “don’t pay any attention to them. We’ll cook the things and eat them. You’re supposed to be generous, you’re supposed to help a fellow scout. Anyway, all you need to take back is a quarter of a pound of meat and two potatoes, but you don’t even need to take that much because I’ll testify that you cooked them. All these fellows will testify.”
“Yes, but you said they’re all crazy,” Willie Cook piped up.
“A—eh—a crazy fellow can testify, can’t he?” Pee-wee shouted. “Anyway if I testify it’s enough; everybody at Temple Camp knows me. Unwrap the bundle and let’s cook the stuff; we haven’t had anything but one fish and a bite of chocolate each since breakfast——”
“Two bites,” Garry said; “and don’t forget the roast duck.”
Oh boy! Laugh? I just stood there shaking. There stood poor little Willie Cook holding his greasy bundle behind him and backing away so Pee-wee couldn’t grab it.
“Are you going to be generous and help a fellow scout or not?” he was shouting. “Don’t you know a scout is supposed to save life? You get—a—a gold medal for that. We haven’t had anything to eat——”
“Except roast duck,&r............