The next morning I sent a birch bark call to an the fellows in our
troop. I sent them each a little piece of birch bark by courier. Connie
Bennett, he's our courier. And that meant come to Special Meeting--W. S.
W. S. means without scoutmaster. So pretty soon they began coming up to
Camp Solitaire. That's the name I gave the tent I have on our lawn. When
they were all there, I told them about Mr. Donnelle and the houseboat,
and we decided that we'd hike over to Little Valley and pile right in
and get it ready instead of bringing it to Bridgeboro first. We decided
that if we worked on it for about three days, it would be ready.

So we all started to hike it along the road to Little Valley. We had an
adventure before we got there, and I guess I'd better ten you about it.
I made a map too, so you can see the way everything was. It's about five
miles to Little Valley by the road.

Well, we were an hiking it along, sometimes going scout-pace and most of
the time jollying Pee-wee, when all of a sudden I noticed a mark on a
rock that I was sure was a scout mark. It was an arrow and it was marked
with a piece of slate. Underneath the arrow was another mark like a pail,
so I knew the sign meant that there was water in that direction.

I didn't know any scouts around our way that could be camping there, but
whenever a scout sees a scout sign he usually likes to follow it up. So
I told the fellows I was going to follow if there was any time. They said
it was an old last year's mark, but go ahead if I wanted to, and I told
them I'd meet them at Little Valley later. So now comes the adventure.
As soon as I left the fellows, I hit the trail into the woods just like
you'll see on the map I made. It wasn't much of trail and I guess a
fellow couldn't follow it if he wasn't a scout. It was all thick woods