Chapter I.

TROUBLES OF MY OWN—THE BIG CONCLAVE

We ll, here I am at last, ready to tell you the adventures of our young lives. Right away I have trouble with Pee-wee Harris. He's about as easy to keep down as a balloon full of gas. We call him the young dirigible because he's always going up in the air. Even at the start he must stick in his chapter heading about a conclave.

Hanged if I know what a conclave is. It's some kind of a meeting I guess. He said it was something like a peace conference, but believe me, the meeting I'm going to tell you about wasn't much like a peace conference. I told him I'd use my own heading and his too, just to keep him quiet. I think he's got his pockets stuffed full of chapter headings and that he'll be shooting them at me all the way through—like a machine-gun.

I guess I might as well tell you about Pee-wee, before I tell you about the conclave or whatever you call it. He's Doctor Harris's son and he's a member of the Raven Patrol. He's a member in good standing, only he doesn't stand very high. Honest, you can hardly see him without a magnifying glass. But for voice— good night!

He sings in the Methodist Church choir and they say he can throw his voice anywhere. I wish he'd throw it in the ash barrel, I know that.

He always wears his belt-axe to troop meetings, in case the Germans should invade Bridgeboro, I suppose. He's the troop mascot and if you walk around him three times and ruffle up his beautiful curly hair, you can change your luck.

We ll, now I'll tell you about the meeting. We had a big special meeting to decide about two things, and believe me, those two things had momentous consequences. Momentous —that's a good word, hey?

One thing, we wanted to decide about our campaign for collecting books for soldiers, and another thing, we wanted to decide how we could all go up to Temple Camp in our cabin launch, the Good Turn.

This large and what-do-you-call-it launch—I mean commodious launch—is a dandy boat, except for one thing—the bow is too near the stern. If we were sardines instead of boy scouts, it would be all right, but you see there's twenty-four of us altogether, not counting Captain Kidd, our mascot—he's a parrot.

So I got up and said,"How are we going to crowd twenty-four growing boys and a parrot into a twenty foot launch?"

"It can't be did,"Doc Carson shouted.

"Then some of us will have to hike it on our dear little feet,"I said.

"Or else we'll have to get a barge or something or other and tow it,"Artie Van Arlen said.

"What, with a three horsepower engine?"somebody else shouted.

"You can bet I won't be one of the ones to hike it,"Pee-wee yelled;"I'll dope out some scheme or other."

And believe me, he did.

We ll, after we'd been talking about an hour or so on how we'd manage it, Mr. Ellsworth, our scoutmaster, up and said there was plenty of time for that as long as we were not going to camp for a couple of weeks anyway, and that we'd better begin thinking of how we were going to start about collecting books for soldiers.

All the while I had something very important to say, and I was kind of trembling, as you might say, for I thought maybe Mr. Ellsworth wouldn't like the idea. Anyway I got up and began:

"The author that wrote all about'Tom Slade's Adventures in the World War',"I said,"told me it would be a good idea for me to write up our troop's adventures and he'd help me to get them published."

Then up jumped Pee-wee Harris like a jack-in-the-box.

"What are you talking about?"he shouted;"don't you know you have to have a command of language to write books? You're crazy!"

"I should worry about a command of language,"I told him."Haven't I got command of the Silver Fox Patrol? Anybody who can command the Silver Fox Patrol ought to be able to command a few languages and things. I could command a whole regiment even,"I kept up, for I saw that Pee-wee was getting worked up, as usual, and all the fellows were laughing, even Mr. Ellsworth.

"If you could command a division,"We sty Martin said, in that sober way of his,"you ought to be able to command English all right."

"I can command any kind of a division,"I shouted, all the while winking at We sty."I can command a long division or a short division or a multiplication or a subtraction or a plain addition."

"What are you talking about?"Pee-wee yelled."You're crazy!"

"I can command anything except Pee-wee Harris's temper,"I said.

We ll, you ought to have seen Pee-wee. Even Mr. Ellsworth had to laugh.

"How can a fellow your age write books?"he fairly screamed."You have to have sunsets and twilights and gurgling brooks and——"

"You leave the gurgling brooks to me,"I said;"I'll make them gurgle all right. The re's going to be plenty of action in these books. And Pee-wee Harris is going to be the village cut-up."

"Are you going to have girls?"he shouted.

"Sure I'm going to have girls—gold haired girls—all kinds—take your pick."

"Good night!"Pee-wee shouted,"I see your finish."

We ll, pretty soon everybody was shouting at the same time and Pee-wee was dancing around, saying we were all crazy. Most of the Raven Patrol were with him and they ought to be called the Raving Patrol, believe

me.

Then Mr. Ellsworth held up his hand in that quiet way he has."This sounds like the We stern Front or a Bolsheviki meeting,"he said,"and I'm afraid our young Raven, Mr. Pee-wee Harris, will presently explode and that would be an unpleasant episode for any book."

"Good night!"I said."Don't want any of my books to end with an explosion."

Then he said how it would be a good idea for me to write up our adventures and how he'd help me whenever I got stuck and how he guessed the author of Tom Slade would put in fancy touches for me, because he lives in our town and he's a whole lot interested in our troop. He said that breezes and distant views and twilights and things aren't so hard when you get used to them and even storms and hurricanes are easy if you only know how. He said girls aren't so easy to manage though.

"I'll help you out with the girls,"Pee-wee said;"I know all about girls. And I'll help you with the names of the chapters, too."

"All right,"Mr. Ellsworth said,"I think Pee-wee will prove a valuable collaborator."

"A which?"Pee-wee said, kind of frightened.

So then we all laughed and Mr. Ellsworth said it was getting late and we'd better settle about collecting books for the soldiers.

We decided that after we got to camp I'd begin writing up our adventures on the trip, but we couldn't decide how we'd all go in our boat, and that was the thing that troubled us a lot, because the fellows in our troop always hang together and we didn't like the idea of being separated.

We ll, I guess that's all there is to tell you about the meeting, and in the next chapter I'm going to tell you all about how we collected the books for the fellows in camp, and how the mystery about the boat was solved. Those are Pee-wee's words about the mystery of the boat. I can't see that there was any mystery about it, but there was another kind of a mystery, believe me, and that kid was the cause of it. I guess maybe you'll like the next chapter better than this one.

So long.