CHAPTER XXVI WE SEE A HOUSE

 So then Willie Cook cooked his meat and potatoes and as long as he was a tenderfoot and didn’t know much about scouting¹ we showed him how scouts³ eat. We let him keep one potato and about an ounce of meat to take back to camp for evidence to show to the raving⁴ Ravens⁵. After that we felt pretty good so we sprawled⁶ around and rested a while.

Scout² Cook said, “Are you going straight back to camp?”

“Not straight,” Hervey said, “but we’re on our way there. If it’s where it was this morning, we’re going to go to it. I suppose it was there when you left, wasn’t it?”

“It’s usually there,” Bert said.

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Pee-wee said to his new member; “they’ve been acting⁷ like that all day. They’ve been going around and around and around like a chicken with its head off. Hervey Willetts and Roy Blakeley are the worst of the lot.”

“Sure, we’re each worse than the other if not more so,” I said. “The question is, where do we go from here?”

“We go straight west to Temple Camp,” Pee-wee shouted; “we’re not going to, what d’you call it, deviate⁸.”

“Call it whatever you want, I don’t care,” I said.

“And we’re going to go pretty soon, too,” the kid said; “we’re going to go while the column of smoke from the cooking shack⁹ is still going up. We can’t see the sun any more; we haven’t got anything to follow but the smoke.”

“Wrong the first time,” I said. “We’ve got Hervey Willetts to follow. I’d rather follow him than the sun; the sun always goes to the same place; he goes every which way. There’s no pep to the sun. Is there, Scout Cook?”

I guess the poor little kid thought we were a pack of lunatics. He didn’t know what to say.

“What time did you leave camp?” I asked him.

He said, “About one o’clock; just after the bus came with a lot of new scouts. There’s a big troop coming to-night and Uncle Jeb has got to send them to Bear Mountain Camp because there aren’t any more tents or cabins to put them in. I’d rather stay at Temple Camp, wouldn’t you?”

“The only place I like to stay at is nowhere,” Hervey said; “and I don’t care to stay very long even there. Why didn’t the bunch in Administration Shack let that troop know before they started, I wonder?”

“The troop sent a telegram,” Willie Cook said.

“What do you say we hike to Bear Mountain to-night?” Hervey said.

“Are there bears there?” Willie wanted to know.

I said, “No, they call it Bear Mountain because all the scouts go round in their bare feet up there. Give me Temple Camp every time; there’s only one thing I don’t like about it, and that is going home from it.”

“If you like it so much it’s a wonder you don’t go there,” Pee-wee shouted. “You’ve been going there all day and none of us are there yet. Pretty soon the smoke will die down and then what? You know yourself you can’t trust signboards or anything up here. We know that column of smoke is in the west because that’s where the sun went down and we know that Temple Camp is the only place that sends up a big column of smoke like that. Are you going to stop your nonsense and follow it or not?”

“We don’t need the smoke,” Warde said. “See that roof right in line with the smoke? All we have to do is to follow the roof——”

“We’ll climb over it,” Hervey said.

“Let the smoke die down. What do we care?” Garry said. “The roof won’t die down; that’s a sure beacon¹⁰.”

All of a sudden Hervey jumped up. “Follow your leader,” he said.

So off we started with little Willie Cook coming along behind and trying to keep up with us while we sang:

Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,

Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;

Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,

But follow your leader wherever he goes.

1 scouting   

守候活动，童子军的活动

参考例句：

• I have people scouting the hills already. 我已经让人搜过那些山了。
• Perhaps also from the Gospel it passed into the tradition of scouting. 也许又从《福音书》传入守望的传统。 来自演讲部分

2 scout   

n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索

参考例句：

• He was mistaken for an enemy scout and badly wounded.他被误认为是敌人的侦察兵，受了重伤。
• The scout made a stealthy approach to the enemy position.侦察兵偷偷地靠近敌军阵地。

3 scouts   

侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员

参考例句：

• to join the Scouts 参加童子军
• The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组，然后开始巡逻这个地区。

4 raving   

adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地

参考例句：

• The man's a raving lunatic. 那个男子是个语无伦次的疯子。
• When I told her I'd crashed her car, she went stark raving bonkers. 我告诉她我把她的车撞坏了时，她暴跳如雷。

5 ravens   

n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Wheresoever the carcase is,there will the ravens be gathered together. 哪里有死尸，哪里就有乌鸦麇集。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A couple of ravens croaked above our boat. 两只乌鸦在我们小船的上空嘎嘎叫着。 来自辞典例句

6 sprawled   

v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着）

参考例句：

• He was sprawled full-length across the bed. 他手脚摊开横躺在床上。
• He was lying sprawled in an armchair, watching TV. 他四肢伸开正懒散地靠在扶手椅上看电视。

7 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

8 deviate   

v.(from)背离，偏离

参考例句：

• Don't deviate from major issues.不要偏离主要问题。
• I will never deviate from what I believe to be right.我绝不背离我自信正确的道路。

9 shack   

adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚

参考例句：

• He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.在走到他的茅棚以前，他不得不坐在地上歇了五次。
• The boys made a shack out of the old boards in the backyard.男孩们在后院用旧木板盖起一间小木屋。

10 beacon   

n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔

参考例句：

• The blink of beacon could be seen for miles.灯塔的光亮在数英里之外都能看见。
• The only light over the deep black sea was the blink shone from the beacon.黑黢黢的海面上唯一的光明就只有灯塔上闪现的亮光了。