“Take me back to your camp,” said Mr. Goodwin, with a smile toward his son.
“Gosh, I don’t know whether we can ever find it in the dark!” cried Peanut.
They got into Mr. Goodwin’s car, with Rob.
“Let me ride in front,” said Rob, “and go slow. There will be wheel tracks where the car turned in to pick me up just now.”
“Well, that’s an idea!” said Mr. Goodwin. “You boys seem to be ready for anything.”
“Be prepared--that’s our motto,” Peanut replied, proudly.
The car moved slowly back up the road, and Rob and the driver kept their eyes open. Soon Rob signaled to stop. The driver took a pocket electric flash lamp from under the seat, and handed it to Rob, who led the way through the bushes, and across the brook. He flashed it up and down the wall of bushes and trees, and suddenly, out of the darkness, came a sleepy grunt, and a startled, “Hi, what’s that? Who’s there?”
“Wake up, Frank, and hear the birdies sing,” cried Peanut.
Frank, Lou and Mr. Rogers sat up, rubbing their eyes, as the others came into camp. Art lit the camp lantern, and by its light the story of the night’s adventure was hastily told.
“Well, well!” exclaimed Mr. Rogers. “I _am_ a bad Scout Master! To think I slept right through everything!”
“I think you are a pretty good one, to develop such Scouts as these,” said Mr. Goodwin.
“Oh, rats!” exclaimed Frank, “to think I missed it all!”
“They didn’t let me in on much,” Rob laughed.
“Why didn’t you wake the rest of us?” Lou demanded of Peanut.
“The more awake, the more noise,” said Peanut. “Rob almost gummed the game. Would have if the burglars hadn’t thought he was a rabbit.”
“Well, boys,” Mr. Goodwin put in, “you want to be going back to sleep.” He looked at his watch, and added, “My, my! it’s three o’clock. The sun will be up in less than two hours! Now, I want you all to come to my house to dinner to-morrow night. We’ve got to celebrate, and talk this adventure over. You can get down Lafayette by seven, can’t you? I’m sure you can. Seven o’clock, then!”
“But we haven’t got any joy rags,” Peanut protested.
Mr. Goodwin laughed. “You’ll have appetites--that’s all I ask!”
He spoke a few words quietly to the Scout Master and then went back to his car. Peanut and Art kicked off their shoes again, and lay down with the rest, to sleep. But they were too excited to sleep. They lay side by side and conversed in whispers of the night’s excitement, while the Scout Master and Rob were also whispering. Once they heard Rob say, “But it was the only way to save the property, and if I’d waked you all up, what good would it have done? We couldn’t get to the Profile on foot till long after the trouble was over. I just had to trust ’em. It seemed to me a job Scouts ought to tackle, even if it was dangerous.”