Then pretty soon we came to a creek that ran through the woods and I could see it was deep and all shaded by the trees.  Oh, jiminy, it was fine.  And you could hear it ripple too, just like the water of Black Lake up near Temple Camp.  If I was a grown-up author I could write some dandy stuff about it, because it was all dark and spooky as you might say, and you could see the trees reflected in it and casting their something or other—­you know what I mean.

“Can you follow a trail?”, Mr. Donnelle asked us.

“Trails are our middle names;” I told him, “and I can follow one—­”

“Whitherso’er—­” Pee-wee began.

“Whither so which?” I said.  Because he was trying to talk high brow just because he knew Mr. Donnelle was an author.

So he led us along a trail that ran along the shore all in and out through trees, and he said it was all his property.  Pretty soon I could see part of a house through the trees and I thought I’d like to live there, it was so lonely.

“You mean secluded,” Pee-wee said.  Mr. Donnelle smiled and I told him Pee-wee was a young dictionary—­pocket size.

Pretty soon we reached the house and, good night, it wasn’t any house at all; it was a house boat.  And I could see the fixtures for a wireless on it, only the wires had been taken down.

Then Mr. Donnelle said, “Boys,” he said, “this is my old workshop and I have spent many happy hours in it.  But I don’t use it any more and if you boys think you could all pile into it, why you are welcome to it for the summer.  It has no power, but perhaps you could tow it behind your launch.  Anyway you may charter it for the large sum of nothing at all, as a reward for foiling a spy.”

“I—­I kind of knew you were not a spy all the time,” said Pee-wee.

Well, I was so flabbergasted that I just couldn’t speak and even Pee-wee was struck dumb.  We just gaped like a couple of idiots, and after a while I said, “Cracky, it’s too good to be true.”

“So you see what comes from collecting books for soldiers and for keeping your eyes open,” Mr. Donnelle said; “you have caught a bigger fish than you thought.  N ow suppose I show you through the inside.”

Now here is the place where the plot begins to get thicker and, believe me, in four or five chapters it will be as thick as mud.  We were just coming up to the house-boat to go aboard it, when suddenly the door flew open and a fellow scampered across the deck and ran away.

I could see that he had pretty shabby clothes and a peaked cap and I guess he was startled to hear us coming.  In just a few seconds he was gone in the woods and we all stood gaping there while the boat bobbed up and down, on account of him jumping from it.  But I got a squint at his face all right, and I noticed the color of his cap and how he ran, and I’m mighty glad I did, because that fellow was going to come into our young lives again and cause us a lot of trouble, you can bet.