Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike Part 29

"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 pa.s.s 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 trespa.s.sing?"