Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Tangled Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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Now this is the way we started. We went through Cabin Lane (that’s part of Temple Camp) and passed Commissary Shack and turned into the first path to the left and that’s West Trail, and it goes around the lake through the woods.

Pee-wee said, “Now it shows how crazy you all are because this trail will bring us right back to where we started, and if we start again we’ll only do the same thing over again, and we might just as well try to get somewhere on a merry-go-round.”

“That’s a very good idea,” I told him; “a merry-go-round hike, I never thought of that.”

“What’s the use just going around and around the lake all the time?” he shouted. “Do you call that a hike?”

“When we get back we can say we’ve been around a lot,” Brent said.

“And what are we going to do when we get back?” the kid yelled.

“Oh, we’re just going to keep on going till we find a path to the left,” Warde said.

“If there isn’t a path to the left the first time there won’t be one the second time, will there?” our young hero screamed.

“If you don’t succeed at first try, try again,” Hervey said. He looked awful funny marching ahead through the woods with the rest of us after him. He looked very serious like, just as if we were really going somewhere. Brent followed along right after him, very sober, with his spectacles half-way down his nose, the way he always wears them. He’s long and lanky and always very sober, that fellow is. I mean he acts sober. He said:

“This is just as good as a trip around the world only it’s shorter. When you start around the world you don’t get anywhere; you just come back to the place where you started. That’s because the world is round. If a thing’s round and you start around it you can’t have any destination. That’s logic.”

“Absolutely, positively,” Warde said. “The equator is all right but it doesn’t get you anywhere. This is a round trip, we’re encircling the lake.”

“How many times are we going to encircle it?” the kid fairly screeched. “You call that logic? Do you think I’m going to keep hiking round and round and round and round the lake all day with nothing to eat? And anyway if there was a path to the left it would run into the lake only there isn’t any.”

“Well, probably it doesn’t run into the lake then,” Brent said.

“What are you worrying about? We can’t get lost,” Warde said to him.

“How is it going to end, that’s what I want to know?” the kid shouted.

“It isn’t going to end,” I said; “it’s perpetual motion.”

Gee whiz, I had to laugh at him. He was trudging along with a scowl on his face, and he looked kind of disgusted with all of us. The funny part of him is that he always goes with us, and yet he keeps kicking all the time.

“I suppose you’re going to write this up like the other crazy hikes we took,” he said. “Everything you do you write a story about it.”

I said, “Sure, I remind myself of the Woolworth Building, I have so many stories. Keep to the left.” He was just going to turn into a path to the right, but I hauled him back.

We just kept on going along the path around the lake; it was awful funny because we knew it wouldn’t get us anywhere. The kid was wild. Pretty soon we came to the outlet of the lake (you can see it on the map), and Hervey jumped across it, then Brent took one of those long steps of his, very solemn, and Warde and I followed.

I don’t know how Sandwich got across, but he was waiting for us on the other side. He acted as if he knew we were all crazy and liked it. Our young hero tried to take a long step across and, kerflop, down he went into the water. One good thing, it wasn’t very deep.

“Going down,” Warde said.

“If we’re going to keep going around and around this lake till we’re all—till we’re all walking skeletons,” Pee-wee shouted, “I’m going to put a board across that outlet.”

“Come on, keep moving,” Hervey said; “make it snappy.”

“What do you mean, snappy?” the kid screamed. “Do you think I’m going to keep on getting wet every time just because the rest of you are lunatics?” He looked awful funny coming along after us sputtering and shouting, with his scout suit all wet.

“United we stand, divided we sprawl,” I told him. “Hervey’s leading; if he doesn’t use a board the rest of us can’t.”

“Sprawl is the word,” said Brent.

“We’re not responsible for the length of your legs,” I told the kid. “If you want to be a quitter and drop out when we get around to camp, all right. We’re on a left-handed hike and our hike flower is the daffodil and our slogan is Keep going to the left and if we don’t get anywhere we’re not to blame; geography is to blame, and I never had any use for geography anyway.”

“We’ll get dizzy and go staggering into the lake, that’s what we’ll do,” the kid yelled.

“All right,” I said, “drop in or drop out, we don’t care which you do, only keep still. Can’t you see we’re busy hiking?”