One revolving police traffic sign
  One large phonograph horn
  One dishpan full of crullers (taken in a masterly
      assault upon the Harris pantry)
  One tent
  One duffel bag with cooking set
  Part of a vacuum cleaner
  One scout belt axe
  One Thanksgiving horn
  One automobile siren horn. 
  One lantern
  Two long clothesline supporters
  A towel-rack that opened like a fan
  A skein of clothesline
  A small kitchen-range shovel
  Two boxes filled with canned goods
  One box filled with loose edibles
  One ice cream freezer

“Didn’t you bring a cow?” Townsend asked.  “We can never make ice cream without cream.”

“We’re in reach of the mainland, aren’t we?” Pee-wee retorted thunderously.  “It isn’t as if we were going out of sight of land; gee whiz, then I’d have brought quite a lot of stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” said Townsend.

“I just picked up a few odds and ends,” Pee-wee explained.  “I’m going to make a couple of more trips to-morrow.”

“If you happen to think of it bring a lawnmower,” said Townsend; “they come in handy.  And a few life preservers if you happen to have any, in case the island goes to pieces.”

“How can it go to pieces?” Pee-wee demanded.  “Islands don’t go to pieces, do they?  Australia is an island, isn’t it?  It’s just where it always was, isn’t it?  You’re crazy!  All we need is one more scout and I know one by the name of Keekie Joe, and I’m going to try to get him and then we’ll be a full patrol and I decided to name it the Alligators, because they belong on land and water both and we’re sea scouts on the land kind of, so maybe I’ll decide to name it the Turtles, maybe.”

“Discoverer,” said Townsend, “we’re with you whatever you do, but there is a mystery about this island which I would like to fathom before we organize——­”

“I fathomed lots of mysteries,” shouted Pee-wee.

“I don’t know whether you know what erosion means——­”

“Sure I know what it means,” said Pee-wee; “it means getting rusty, kind of.”

“It means land being washed away by water.  If you put a piece of land in the water, the water will dissolve it and it won’t take long either.  It isn’t like an island that has always been where it is—­a kind of hill sticking up out of the water.  This is just a piece of land and the roots of this little tree won’t hold it together long.

“The question is, should we go hunting for new members under those conditions?  Pretty soon we’ll have a full patrol and no island under us; we’ll be in the water.  That’s perfectly agreeable to me and all the rest of us.  But does Keekie Joe know how to swim?  We really have no grounds for forming a patrol.  See?”

“Do you call that an argument?” Pee-wee thundered.  “It shows how much you know about geography because look at an ice cream soda!  Does that corrode?  Let’s hear you answer that?  Or erode or whatever you call it.  A chunk of ice cream floats in the soda, doesn’t it?  Maybe after a while it melts, but this land isn’t ice cream, is it?