Roy Blakeley's Roundabout Hike

Roy Blakeley's Roundabout Hike

Roy Blakeley's Roundabout Hike, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh, follows Roy Blakeley, the wisecracking leader of the Silver Fox Patrol, as he narrates a summer misadventure at Temple Camp that sprawls far beyond its original intent. Roy posts a notice at camp calling for volunteers to join a new "crazy hike," and the first to appear is the irrepressible, perpetually hungry Walter "Pee-wee" Harris, patrol leader of the Chipmunks. Two other boys, Dub Smedley from Jersey City and Egbert "Sandy" Sanderson from Rye, New York, round out the group. The plan is simple and absurd: follow wherever the wind blows, using Pee-wee's homemade "windmeter," a bottle with confetti strips attached to the cork, to determine their direction. The wind carries them west into the woods and toward the village of Bagley's Green, where it dies completely, stranding the four boys on a village green with nothing to do but play mumbly-peg and trade insults. While waiting, they meet an amiable bald man named Saul Bagley, who sits down with them on the grass and tells them a story about his father, old Ephraim Bagley, who years ago made a new will leaving his estate to Saul rather than to his cousins. On his way home from having the will witnessed in Catskill, the old man fell into a deep rocky gorge called Beaver Chasm and was found dead the next day. His coat was discovered some distance from his body, and the oilskin dispatch container holding the will was missing. Saul Bagley believes the will is still somewhere in the chasm and tells the boys that if found, it would allow him to sell the adjacent woodland to Temple Camp, which had long wanted the property. The dry summer has lowered the brook running through the chasm, exposing areas never before accessible. He challenges the boys to find the will, shakes Pee-wee's hand, and walks away into the woods. Abandoning the wind-following premise entirely, the four Scouts return to Temple Camp, obtain a three-day camping leave and supplies, and set up a tent in Beaver Chasm to search for the lost document. Their hunt turns up nothing of significance. On their first night, they spot a mysterious lantern-lit shelter at the far end of the chasm, heavily camouflaged with brush. Pee-wee sneaks up to investigate and returns terrified, reporting pistols, a mask, and a shotgun. The boys conclude they have stumbled upon the hiding place of bandits who recently robbed a post office in a nearby town, and they march to the village of Bagley Center the next morning to report to police. In Bagley Center, however, a girl sweeping her porch informs them that Saul Bagley is well known in the village as a harmless wandering lunatic whose father did die in Beaver Chasm but left no special will. She and her friend had just earned a hundred-dollar reward for finding the old man after one of his episodes of confused wandering. The supposed bandit hideout, she explains, is the set of a motion picture being filmed in the chasm by a company making a story about the Cumberland Mountains. The boys visit the film camp, where they meet a young actor who goes by the name Bunko Bravado, whose real name turns out to be Bobby Easton, a Scout from Temple Camp working temporarily as a helper for a team of government surveyors who have taken over the site after the film company departed. Pee-wee, in a fit of competitive bravado, challenges the boy to prove that film actors are braver than Scouts. The confrontation leads to a dangerous leap across the narrow upper edge of the chasm, during which Pee-wee falls and is caught in a rotten tree growing from the chasm wall. Bobby Easton climbs down, holds Pee-wee's weight on his shoulders while clinging to a rock, and guides the younger boy to safety, then falls himself. The others, standing below with a coat stretched between them, break his fall. Bobby is cut and shaken but not seriously hurt. Because his act of saving Pee-wee's life meets the requirements, Bobby Easton subsequently receives the Scout Gold Medal for lifesaving and a private hundred-dollar award called the Ellen Burnside prize. This outcome is particularly bittersweet for Dub Smedley, who is running out of money and must return home to Jersey City the following Saturday. He had hoped, through a combination of Pee-wee's scheming and good luck, to win the Burnside prize himself and use it to stay at camp for the rest of the season. Pee-wee's grand plans for engineering a heroic opportunity for Dub come to nothing. On the night before Dub's departure, he and Roy hike around the lake and discover Will Dawson, a member of Roy's patrol, in the water after falling from an illegally borrowed boat with a rope tangled around his foot. Dub dives in and rescues him. Rather than claim the medal and the prize money, Dub secretly returns the boat, leaves Roy a note on a tree asking him to say nothing and protect Will from punishment, and resigns himself to going home. Roy is moved by Dub's selflessness but cannot persuade him to accept the credit. The following day, however, Will Dawson sends an urgent telegram to his father, who arrives by train just as Dub is about to depart, detains him by prolonged handshaking while the train pulls away, and arranges for Dub to stay at camp through the end of the season, providing funds and a Scout uniform. Dub eventually earns his Eagle Scout badge that summer. His act of saving Will Dawson's life remains known only to the small group who were present, and his promise to keep Will's rule-breaking secret is honored. The story ends with the group hiking back to camp together, the roundabout hike complete in its characteristic fashion, full of adventures that came to nothing and good turns that went unrewarded in any official sense.

By Percy Keese Fitzhugh · First published 1918 · Genre: Adventure, Young Adult, Scout Fiction · 32 chapters · 54,898 words

First lines

Every time I start telling you about one of our hikes, I say it's the craziest hike I ever took. I guess it's true, because they're all crazier than each other. If there are a lot of things and each one of them is crazier than the other, that shows they're all the craziest. If you don't believe it, you can do it by long division only I like short division better -- the shorter it is the better I like it. Even if there wasn't any arithmetic at all I'd be satisfied.

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Tags

juvenile fiction · adventure · Boy Scouts · camping · hiking · outdoor life · friendship · humor · mystery · travel · coming of age · American literature

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