said.

All of a sudden Pee-wee exploded. He sounded like a munition factory
going up. "You think you're smart, all of you, don't you!" he hollered.

"A scout is smart," Westy said.

"A scout can do anything," I said.

"He is resourceful--it's in the handbook," Wig said, very sober like.

"It's in the handbook--it's in the handbook--it's in the handbook,"
Pee-wee fairly yelled, "that a scout has to be----"

"Helpful," I said; "he has to be helpful to women."

"You make me sick!" he fairly shrieked.

"You'll be the one to make _us_ sick," Westy put in.

"Do you think I'm going to do that?" he fairly screamed; "do you
think--do you think--do you think----"

"Three strikes out," Connie shouted.

"Do you think I'm a _fool_?" Pee-wee finished.

"_A scouts honor is to be trusted_," I said; (that's scout law number
one) "_if he were to violate his honor----_"

"You make me tired," Pee-wee yelled; "a scout has got to be
_cautious_--it says so--he's got to leap--I mean look--he's, he's got to
consider others--just because somebody that ought to know how to do a
thing that he doesn't know how to do asks somebody to do something that
the other person won't learn to do if the other person does it for him,
because that isn't being resourceful, if somebody else does that thing
for you, and so the other person doesn't learn how to do it himself--do
you mean--do you mean to tell me--that that's being a good scout?"

"Sure it is," I told him; "it's just the same as if a person that wants
to do something, doesn't do it because if he does, he won't. Why then,
how could the other person do something that somebody else wanted
another person not to do----"

"You'd have to have a crowbar," Westy said.

"Pee-wee's right and we're wrong, as he usually is," Connie shouted.

CHAPTER XV

TO THE RESCUE

We made the plush seats up into beds that night and, oh, didn't we
sleep, with the breeze blowing in through the windows! It was dandy.

In the morning none of us said anything about dinner. That was funny,
because most always that's the principal thing we talk about on Sunday
mornings, especially at Temple Camp. Once Wig said that he guessed the
hike around the lake through the woods would make us good and hungry,
and I noticed Pee-wee didn't say anything. He was so still you could
hear the silence.

Along about ten o'clock we saw the boat coming over. Two of the girls
were in it, and each of them was rowing with o