Now there’s going to be something doing again because we woke up. While we were asleep the smoke from the cooking shack died. I guess they were all through cooking supper at camp. The sun had gone down too. The part of the sky where it had gone down was all bright—red kind of. So we knew that was the west. The roof we had seen wasn’t in line with it, but you can’t exactly say a thing is in line with a bright part of the sky. The column of smoke had been right behind that little roof, maybe two miles from it, so we decided to use that roof for a beacon. That would take us to the road and from there I knew the trail through the other woods.
I have to admit we were all about ready to go home by then. We were all pretty tired after that crazy day. If they would have to send a new troop away on account of there not being accommodations, that would mean the bus would go down to Catskill again and I wanted to get to camp in time to send a letter home. I didn’t like to think about a troop being sent away but it served them right for not writing beforehand. Every tent and every cabin was crowded that summer.
I said to Hervey, “If you want to be the leader all right, but from now on we’re going straight for camp. I admit you’re too much for the rest of us. You ought to live in a volcano or a cyclone or something like that. I’m good and tired. See if you can make a bee-line to that little roof and then we’ll know we’re going straight for camp.”
“And when you get to camp stop there,” Warde said.
“I hope he bunks into the pavilion, that’ll be the only thing to stop him,” Garry said.
“This time, it’s positively guaranteed,” Hervey said; “I’m going straight west till I bunk right into that house.”
“Keep your eye on the roof,” Bert said, “because that’s the only way we can be sure we’re going right.”
“Ready, go” Hervey said.
That time we kept going straight ahead without any nonsense—right straight for that roof.
“I’d like to have a picture of our travels to-day,” Warde said.
“It would look like the trail of a snake with blind staggers,” I told him. “After to-day I’m going to have some sense.”
“Not if you follow Hervey Willetts,” Warde said.
Hervey said, “I know a better game; it’s called the flip-flop sprint. Did you ever try the razzle-dazzle roam? You have to keep going east while you keep your west eye shut. The hole-in-the-ground hop is a good one too. When shall we try it?”
“We’l............