Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike   By: Percy Keese Fitzhugh (1876-1950)

by

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of Tom Slade, Boy Scout, Tom Slade at Temple Camp, Roy Blakeley, Etc.

Illustrated by R. Emmett Owen

Published with the Approval of the Boy Scouts of America

Grosset & Dunlap Publishers : : New York

Made in the United States of America

[Illustration: "DON'T GRAB IT YET," I SAID. "WAIT. DON'T LET GO." Frontispiece (Page 164) ]

Copyright, 1922, by Grosset & Dunlap

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I WE LOSE A MEMBER 1 II MISSIONARY WORK 4 III A SOLEMN PLEDGE 10 IV WE START 18 V A STUMBLING BLOCK 25 VI A PROPOSITION 31 VII FAMINE 37 VIII REEL ADVENTURE 44 IX DIPLOMACY 50 X THE BEE LINE 55 XI EATS 61 XII BLACK OR WHITE 66 XIII BANDITS AND THINGS 73 XIV THE HAUNTED WHEEL 78 XV A SCOUT IS OBSERVANT 82 XVI SUSPENSE 87 XVII THE HERO 91 XVIII ONE, TWO, THREE, GO! 95 XIX UP IN THE AIR 101 XX SEEING THINGS 105 XXI FETTERS 113 XXII INVASION 120 XXIII FOILED! 125 XXIV DARING DORA DANE 134 XXV PEE WEE'S LOSS 139 XXVI THE SHERO 144 XXVII THE NEW SCOUT 149 XXVIII THE LEDGE 155 XXIX THE LAST HOPE 162 XXX A GOOD TURN 167 XXXI TOMBOY 171 XXXII BEE LINES AND THINGS 176 XXXIII FROGS AND HATS 179 XXXIV A LITTLE BIT OFF THE TOP 188 XXXV LOGIC 192 XXXVI THE SIEGE 198 CHAPTER THE LAST (THANK GOODNESS) IT HASN'T GOT ANY NAME 206

ROY BLAKELEY'S BEE LINE HIKE

CHAPTER I

WE LOSE A MEMBER

Now I'm going to tell you about the bee line hike. Maybe you'll say you don't believe everything I tell you about it, but one thing sure, it's a straight story. It wasn't so long, that hike, but oh, boy!

Now the first thing I have to do in this story is to get rid of Charlie Seabury. That's easy. Then the next thing I have to do is to tell you about Pee wee Harris. Gee whiz, I wish we could get rid of him. That kid belongs in the Raven Patrol and when those fellows went up to Temple Camp they wished him on us for the summer. They said it was a good turn. Can you beat that? I suppose we've got to take him up to camp with us when we go. Anyway the crowd up there will have some peace in the meantime, so we're doing a good turn, that's what I said.

So this story is just about my own patrol and Pee wee Harris, and some buildings and a couple of valleys and a hill and some pie, and a forest and some ice cream cones and a big tree and a back yard and a woman and a ghost and a couple of girls and ten cents' worth of peanut brittle. It's about a college, too. Maybe you think we're not very smart on account of being kind of crazy, but anyway we went through college in ten minutes. So you can see from that how bright we are. That's why we call ourselves the Silver Foxes.

Now Charlie Seabury (he has seven merit badges) has a grandfather who lives out near the Mississippi and his grandfather asked him to go out there and spend the summer. No wonder they call that man grand.

Charlie came to me because I'm patrol leader, and he said, "Shall I go out there and spend the summer?"