CHAPTER IX

HERCULES HARRIS

I guess you’re in a hurry for the next day to come, but anyway you’ll have to wait till after we’ve had our lunch because we were good and hungry. Mostly I have eats come between the chapters so as you won’t be interrupted. Oh boy, the things that happen between the chapters are even more than the things that happen in the chapters. Between chapters we have ice cream cones and everything, but they’re not a part of the story.

It was nice and dim down there in the chasm. We couldn’t go down the side, so we went to the end where it sloped down sort of and we went in the way the brook does--I mean the way it comes out. Only then there wasn’t any brook. It was all rocks in the chasm. I guess that chasm is about a half a mile long. Where it’s widest there is grass growing but everywhere else there are rocks. When there’s any water in there it kind of wriggles in and out among the rocks.

Just like I thought, there was water in the Giant’s Basin. That’s a deep pool made by rocks. It was full of killies, just like I knew it would be. Because when the brook dried up the fish would have to go where there was water. They were all crowded in it and we could scoop them up in our hands--jiminies it was easy. We found an old tin dipper that I guess used to be used to drink out of and we hammered it flat with a stone so it was kind of like a frying-pan. Then we started a fire and I fried killies and they were good. Sandy kept cleaning them with his knife while I kept frying them and Dub kept getting wood for the fire. I bet you can guess what Pee-wee was doing--honest that kid could cause a shortage in the Atlantic Ocean. You have to eat a lot of killies but that’s easy.

Afterward I took a long stick and felt around on the bottom of the pool. There were other places like that pool, only not so big. There were lots of crevices between rocks too. All of a sudden I began to think we did stand a pretty good chance of finding that lost will. Because I’ll tell you why. If the dispatch container fell out of the old man’s pocket into the water it would have been carried along and most likely get wedged in somewhere between rocks. Or else it might get into one of those pools. I didn’t bother my head thinking how the wallet or whatever you call it, got out of the old man’s pocket because I believed it fell out before his coat was taken off. And I didn’t worry about how his coat happened to be off, either.

I said, “To tell you the honest truth the only thing that makes me think we won’t find anything is because Pee-wee is mixed up in it. You fellows don’t know because you’ve never been up to camp before, but Pee-wee is the big hero of about three million things that never happened. I’m sorry it wasn’t him that tried to start the world war because then it never would have happened. You see how the wind died down when we started out on a windmeter hike. But if it wasn’t for Pee-wee I’d think we might find that oil-can or oil container or whatever you call it. It looks good to me. Only there’s no use hunting around. We ought to come and camp here a couple of days or so and work spasmodically----”

“You mean systematically!” Pee-wee yelled.

“What difference does it make what I mean?” I shot back at him. “It’s actions that count, not meanings--I’ll leave it to Dub. We’ve got to go to work under deficient leadership--or sufficient or inefficient, I don’t care.”

All of a sudden Pee-wee went up in the air. “Are you going to have some sense or not?” he shouted. “Now we’ve got a chance to find a paper that will fix it so Mr. Bagley can sell all that woods to Temple Camp and every newspaper in the United States will have pictures of us how we found a lost will and maybe I bet even that woods will be named after us even! And all you can do is to keep on fooling about it, you think it’s a joke to not get some property that you ought to get, you’re such a big fool always laughing and talking a lot of nonsensical nonsense! Do you think that’s the way to discover something serious?”

“I don’t want to discover anything serious,” I said.

“That’s because you’re a Silver Fox,” the kid yelled, “and they’re all the same only you’re worse than any of them and they ought to be named the Laughing Hyenas!”

By that time Dub and Sandy were laughing so hard they couldn’t speak. Dub was lying on his back kicking his legs.

I said, “This has gone far enough. We shall find that will, say no more.”

So then we all started for Temple Camp and on the way there we were good and serious about what we were going to do, because I could see we had a chance to do a pretty big stunt. We all said we wouldn’t tell anybody why we were going to camp in Beaver Chasm, so nobody would come there, because in Temple Camp, _oh boy_, they’re a snoopy bunch. After supper that night I went in Administration Shack and got permission for the four of us to camp in Beaver Chasm for three days--that’s the most you can get permission for unless a scoutmaster goes along. They give you an eats ticket; it’s a requisition slip, that’s what it really is, only we call it an eats ticket. Then you take that to the cooking shack and Chocolate Drop (he’s cook) gives you enough food to last for the time you’re going to be away. But he always gives more than you need. We had to come home late the third day so he gave us enough so we could cook eight meals--coffee and beans and egg powder and Indian meal (I make flapjacks out of that) and canned pineapple and salmon and crackers and, oh gee, all kinds of stuff. Chocolate too. And dandy bacon.

We got a tent from the commissary and four army cots. We could have made hemlock beds, that’s easy, only you can carry things in army cots by carrying them like stretchers. Two of them we carried rolled up and the other two open and full of things. Pee-wee was all dressed up like a Christmas tree or a hardware store or something, with his belt-axe and his aluminum frying-pan and his scout-knife and his compass all hanging from his belt. He didn’t bother about his windmeter. He sounded like a freight train when he walked.

We started out early in the morning--that’s two starts for this story. In most stories you get only one start. But in this story you get two starts and a lot of different endings. This time we didn’t go up through the woods because on account of all the things we had to carry. There’s too much brush in the woods and not even a trail in most places. So we went along the shore of the lake where there’s a path and all the Scouts thought we were going camping around the lake. That was one good thing to throw them off the scent. Then we turned north where the brook is, and you better look at the map. There’s a good path right beside the brook and we followed it till we came to the woods trail, the same way that old Mr. Bagley went home the day he didn’t get there. It was pretty easy walking along that trail to the chasm. So that’s how we got there.

We picked out a peach of a place in the chasm and put up our tent there and built a fireplace out of stones. Oh boy, it was nice where we camped. We put the tent right close to one side of the chasm where the wall was almost straight up and down. We were good and tired so we just sprawled around getting rested till lunch time, and after that we said we’d start hunting. Where the side of the chasm went up there was a kind of a shelf, all rocks, and Pee-wee sat on that. Dub and Sandy and I sat on rocks on the ground. It was so rocky around there that even there was a big flat rock inside the tent, we put the tent up around it and we used the rock for a dining table.

Sandy was feeling kind of silly, I guess we all were, and he said, “Did we put that flat rock in the tent, or didn’t we?”

Dub said, “If we did we can claim to be pretty strong to put a rock the size of that one inside the tent. Most fellows couldn’t even lift it.” Pee-wee almost fell off his royal throne. “That shows the two of you are getting to be as crazy as Roy,” he shouted.

I said, “Silence! Those are harsh words, Scout Harris. What Dub says is perfectly true. It’s an interesting question in natural science----”

“You make me sick with your natural silence, I mean science!” he shouted.

I said, “I accept your apology for using the word _silence_. I never thought you knew there was such a word. But you’re wrong as I usually never am. If that rock is in the tent, we are the ones who put it there--deny it if you can. If we didn’t put the rock in the tent, then how did the tent get outside the rock? It’s as clear as mud, I’ll leave it to Sandy.”

By that time Dub and Sandy were both laughing because they had Pee-wee and me started.

I said, very sober like, “We can claim that we lifted a rock weighing about a quarter of a ton because we put it in that tent and _we did not have a derrick_. Therefore by the same line of reasoning we’re stronger than mustard. Am I right?”

“Sure you are,” Dub said.

“You couldn’t be righter,” Sandy said.

I said, “Now I have a peach of an idea and it will cause a great sensation in scout circles throughout the civilized world----”

“You think you’re smart using big words,” Pee-wee shouted.

I said, “As long as you have your camera with you, Dub, we’ll let Pee-wee take our pictures standing on the rock inside the tent and we’ll write underneath it, _Picture shows three Boy Scouts standing on huge rock which they put inside camping tent without the aid of a derrick_. Then we’ll send it to _Boys’ Magazine_ and they’ll print it. What do you say?”

“It’s a fine idea,” Dub said.

“We ought to have our coats off showing our sinewy arms,” Sandy said.

“Maybe we can even get the Pathé Weekly to send and take pictures of us,” I said. “Where’s your camera anyway?”

“Do you think you can get me to take a picture of a lie?” Pee-wee started. “So you can get famous for what you didn’t do. _No sireeeeee!_”

“Do you claim we didn’t put that rock in the tent--without the aid of a derrick?” I asked him. “That shows how much you know about comparative logic.”

“It shows how much I know about not being a big fool and a big bluff,” he screamed.

“Oh I know a better idea,” I said, “and it’s absolutely, positively honorable--it’s even guaranteed for one year. We’ll stand Pee-wee on the rock with his coat off and his arms folded kind of like a gladiator and a fierce scowl on his face. Then we’ll take his picture and we’ll write on it, _Boy Scout of superhuman strength! He is standing on the huge rock which he put inside the tent by his own tremendous scout prowess. Write and ask him how he did it._”

_Oh boy!_ I’m sorry we ever did that crazy thing because we’ve been getting letters from Boy Scouts ever since. But jiminies, I had to laugh. We stripped Pee-wee to the waist and stood him on the rock inside the tent with his arms folded and a scowl all over his face. We made him look like a gladiator. Then we raised up one side of the tent so as to get plenty of light and we took a dandy picture of him standing on the flat rock. Afterward we got some printed in Catskill and I pasted one on a card and I typed some stuff on the card with the typewriter in Administration Shack. I’m so strong I can use a typewriter with one hand. It said:

YOUNG HERCULES HARRIS BOY SCOUT.

WHO WITHOUT THE AID OF A DERRICK OR EVEN A CROWBAR SUCCEEDED IN PLACING THE HUGE ROCK INSIDE THE TENT. ASK HOW HE DID IT.

ROY BLAKELEY--SCOUT SCRIBE OF 1ST BRIDGEBORO, N. J. TROOP. CABIN L, TEMPLE CAMP.

Dub and Sandy and I tacked that picture on the bulletin-board at Temple Camp and a Scout came and asked me how Pee-wee ever did it.

“That’s easy,” I said. “He put the tent up over the rock. No sooner said than stung.”

I think it was that fellow that sent the picture to _Boys’ Magazine_. Anyway, pretty soon letters began coming to me asking how any Boy Scout could lift such a rock and ever since then I’ve been sending postal cards to Scouts all over the country telling them and it’s getting to be no joke because, jiminy crinkums, don’t you suppose I’ve got anything to do with my money but buy postage stamps? I can’t even get a new tennis racket and I had to stop eating ice cream cones. So please stop writing to me because now you know how it is. Write to Pee-wee and address him care of the cooking shack--that’s where he usually hangs out. I’m through answering letters.