The kid shouted, “Are you going straight to camp or not? Are there going to be any more detours?” “Not exactly detours,” Hervey said; “just a few small scallops to vary the monotony. We’re on our way home. We’re following the smoke and we’re headed straight for the cooking shack; follow your leader. The way I figure it out we ought to land on the stove.”
“We ought to land in the zink,” Garry said.
“The zink would do just as well, follow your leader,” Hervey said. “I’m aiming straight for the dishpan full of cookies. Have courage, follow your leader wherever he goes, don’t weaken or flunk or suggest or oppose——”
Gee whiz, I can’t tell you of all the crazy things that fellow did, singing all the while. He swung into trees and went round and round them till we were all dizzy and didn’t know what we were singing. He kept going in and out around two trees till he had us all staggering and singing:
Don’t ask where you’re opposed,
But follow your nose wherever supposed;
N’ snows n’ suppose wherever goes.
“Wait a minute!” I shouted. “Where’s that roof? I don’t see it.”
“It’s still there,” Hervey said. “Don’t start to whrrrever yr leader suppose in the toes when it starts to suppose.”
“Be careful don’t stub and go flunking your nose,” Pee-wee shouted.
“N’ flow—flow—yr—flunked—wrvr—goes,” poor little Willie Cook sang.
“Have a heart,” I said.
“Do you see the roof?” Garry asked.
I just sank down to the ground. “I see forty-eleven roofs and eighty-nine col-ol-ol-ums of smoke—oke,” I told him.
“We’re get—tet—ing there,” Hervey said.
We all just sprawled on the ground for about ten minutes, dead to the world.
“Sure, we’re nearly there,” I said.
After a little while Scout Harris sat up and set up a howl.
“What’s the matter now?” I asked him.
“The smoke! The smoke!” he shouted. “It isn’t in line with the roof any more! Look!”
I sat up and looked.
............