THE SIEGE He sat down on a nice big comfortable rock and took out a pipe and filled it and started smoking. He looked as if he was going to stay there for a couple of years or so. Will Dawson said, "Now you see what we get for standing on our rights. About ten years from now our skeletons will be found sitting on this sign." "Always on top," Westy said. "If we go down there we get arrested; if we stay up here we starve," Hunt said. "Sure, that's logic," I said. "I'm not so crazy about being part of an ad." "We've got a right here, it's a technicality," the kid said. "Yes, but I'm not so stuck on technicalities," I told him. "You can't eat them." "Let's drown our sorrows in song," Westy said. So then we all started singing and this is what we worked around to: "We're here because we're here, Deny it if you dare; And the reason we're up here, Is because we're not down there." I said, "Believe me, I've had enough of the advertising business. I'm getting hungry. The next time I pose it will be for a restaurant." "I'm going to retire from the hat business," Tom Warner said. "See where it's left us." I said, "Sure, we've risen very high in the hat business. We've risen to the top. How about our bee-line hike?" "We can go through everything except a jail," Westy said. The farmer just sat there on the rock with one knee over the other, smoking his pipe, very calm like. I said, "I wonder if we could go to sleep here like birds?" "Pee-wee ought to be able to," Westy said. "Sure, he's a canary----" "Will you keep still with that?" the kid yelled. "I wish the weekly animated news of all the world could see us now," I said. "'Boy Scouts marooned on an ad,' that's what they'd put. 'Starving on a desert advertising sign.'" The farmer down there on the rock didn't laugh at all, he just sat there smoking. "This is a siege," the kid said. "We're blockaded," another one shouted. "I bet Minerva Skybrow could get us out of this," I said. "Anybody who likes algebra----Hey, Scout Harris, I thought you said that a scout is resourceful. Can't you pass out a little resourcefulness? We'll turn into mummies up here." "We'll sacrifice our lives for Brown's hats," Warde said. So then we started to sing again, each scout singing something different, but pretty soon we all got in line with this; it's a kind of a sequel to "Over There": "Way up here, Way up here; Just our luck, To be stuck; Way up here. And we won't go home, 'Cause we're stuck away up here." "Oh, here comes the painter!" one of the fellows shouted. "Shaved!" I yelled. "He was shaved before," Hunt said. "I mean saved," I told him. "He has reinforcements with him," Pee-wee shouted. "There's one of Brown's hats with a man under it," Ralph Warner said. I said, "I guess that's Mr. Wild Bull. Thank goodness, they'll relieve the starving population." "Anyway, we held out," the kid said. "Sure," I said. "The battle of Brown's hat sign. Wounded, none. Killed, none. Hungry, everybody." Then we all set up a cheer for the painter and the other man. When they came near enough I shouted, "Hey, mister, we're thinking of retiring from the hat business." "Hey, mister," Pee-wee shouted; "aren't we a part of this sign?" "Absolutely," the painter said. "You're the best part of it." "Now you see!" Pee-wee shouted down at the farmer, "You thought we were just hanging around here. Now you see! We're just as much on top as the hats are." "Except when we fall down," I said. "A man's hat might blow off, mightn't it?" the kid yelled. "That wouldn't prove his hat isn't on top, would it?" "That's a very fine argument," the man who was with the painter said. "I know some better ones than that," Pee-wee yelled down at him. "Do you know we caught a bandit?" "Hey, mister," I said, "haven't we got a right up here?" "That's what it says," the man laughed. Then the painter said, "Boys, I want you to meet Mr. Slinger Bull, advertising man for Brown's hats. He is very much taken with the idea of having scouts on top of our signs." I said, "Believe me, we came near being taken. We're going to retire from the business." Mr. Bull said, "Too late, your pictures will soon be all over the country." "Mine too?" Pee-wee yelled. "And we're going to use the scout idea--scouts on top; wood cut-outs, of course." "Wouldn't live cut-ups do?" I asked him. "Because that's us." Mr. Bull, he just laughed and he said, "Who's leader here?" "I am," I told him. He said, "Well, I want your name and address. We'll probably want you to pose. Did you ever pose?" Pee-wee said, "We were in the movies, in the imitated news." "Sure, we used to pose for animal crackers," I said. "Hey, Mr. Bull," Dorry called down; "if we're on this sign are we trespassing?" "No more than the paint is," Mr. Bull said, looking kind of sideways at the farmer. I guess Mr. Bull saw how it was all right. "You boys are protected by your contract with Mr. Grabberberry here. You're absolutely safe, you're covered." "By Brown's hats," Westy said. Mr. Bull said, "Exactly. The sentence above refers to you. You've given us an idea." "We have lots of ideas," Pee-wee said. I said, "I've got an idea we'd like to get away from here; we're hungry. We've been in the hat business for over an hour. We've got a date with a tree." He said, "The world belongs to the boy scouts. Everybody knows them and likes them. To say they're on top is just telling the truth. I think we will hook you boys up with Brown's hats. We may ask you to pose. Brown's hats are known the world over. Step right down, boys, and have no fear." "Did you see me from the train?" Pee-wee asked him. "Did you see me fall backwards? I bet I sold a lot of hats that way, hey?" "Oceans of them," Mr. Bull said. You can bet we weren't afraid with a bull to protect us. We went down the ladder and the farmer didn't say a word. I guess he was thinking about the money he got from Brown's hats all right. He said to Mr. Bull, very nice and polite, "I kinder thought they wuz trespassin', you know. 'N I was a-scared they'd get inter some trouble." "Believe me," I said, "we can't get into trouble because we never got out of it. Anyway, we like the hat business pretty well and I wouldn't mind living on a sign except for getting hungry." So then Mr. Slinger Bull tried to make us take five dollars for our trouble, but we wouldn't take it because scouts don't accept money for that kind of a service. Anyway, it wasn't a service at all, it was just fun. I bet you never heard of anybody being marooned on a desert signboard before. CHAPTER THE LAST (THANK GOODNESS) IT HASN'T GOT ANY NAME Now that was the last adventure that we had that day. But we've had a lot since then. We picked our way up through the woods on the side of the ridge, using our compass, because we couldn't see far ahead. It was getting dark and the woods were awful still. Every time a twig cracked under us it seemed to make a loud noise. There were crickets chirping too. It kind of reminded me of Temple Camp after supper. We kept straight west because we knew that was where the tree was. I guess we all got sort of excited as we came up near to the top of the ridge. I said, "I'm glad the last part of our hike is through the woods. Maybe we had a lot of fun in Bridgeboro and in Little Valley, but the woods for me." Pretty soon we came out into the open and there in the dusk stood the great big tree all by itself. It seemed awful solemn like. Westy said, "Look! Away off there in the east. See?" Oh, boy! Away, way, way off across the country we had come through was like a shaft of dust sticking right up into the sky. It was the searchlight on the Bridgeboro fire-house. "Let's start a good big fire," I said, "so our folks will know we're all right. Then we'll start home." So we started a fire and sat around it and jollied each other and especially Pee-wee--you know how we're always doing. And we roasted the potatoes that we had with us and they tasted good, kind of like smoke. After a while Westy said, "Well, here's the end of our bee-line hike and I bet we didn't go more than about ten or twenty feet out of our path all the way." "That's the only way to get any fun out of a bee-line hike," I said. "Either do it right or not at all." After we were all rested and had eaten all our potatoes we trampled the fire out and went up to the stateroad about a quarter of a mile away to wait for the jitney. I was good and tired, I know that. Warde said, "I've been sitting on the porch all summer reading adventures, but this beats them all. And the best part is it was all real." "Believe me," I told him, "a real agate is an imitation compared to us." "I'm glad I'm in the scouts," he said. "The worst is yet to come," I told him. He said, "I'm game." "You bet you are!" all the fellows shouted. We all looked back and said, "Good night, old tree, see you later." It seemed as if that big tree had been with us all day and we had come to be friends, sort of. Maybe it saw everything from up there and was laughing to itself at all the crazy things we did, hey? As we went along toward the stateroad Dorry said, "Let's take a hike straight north to-morrow." "Sure, for the North Pole," Hunt said. "You can count me out," I told them. "I'm going over to Little Valley to-morrow to play tennis if anybody should ask you." Right away that crazy kid started jumping up and down, shouting, "What I know about you! What I know about you!" I should worry about that bunch. Believe me, I was glad to think of getting rid of them for a day. So long, I'll see you later.