]
"Well, you'll just clear off'n this here property double quick. Pile
in here and I'll set you ashore."
"Don't you go," urged Pee-wee; "we've got a right here; we're going to
camp on this island."
"Sure we are," said Roly Poly.
"And you can't make us get off, either, because it isn't on your land."
Old Trimmer wasted no words. "Pile in here, all of you," he said,
indicating the boat, "or I'll have yer all up fer trespassin'."
"Do you own this old scow or whatever it is underneath us?" Townsend
asked quietly.
"Look a'here, young feller, no talkin' back," said old Trimmer testily;
"come along, step lively. I'm going to tow this whole business back up
to where it belongs. Now d'ye want me ter set yer ashore or not?"
"Not," said Roly Poly.
"I don't think we have anything to say about it, Mr. Trimmer," said
Townsend. "The land that used to be part of your field seems to be on
a scow or something or other and we're on the land that's on the scow.
We're here because we're here----"
"Let's hear you answer that argument!" shouted Pee-wee in a voice of
thunder. "This is a river, isn't it? Do you deny that? It's an
inward waterway--I mean inland--and it belongs to the government and
this scow or whatever it is, is on it and something that used to be a
peninsula but isn't any more is on the scow and we're on the thing that
used to be a peninsula----"
"In the shade of the young apple tree," said Townsend.
"That's just what I was going to say," said Pee-wee, "and you can't put
us off this land because if that's trespassing then the land is
trespassing too--it's trespassing on the scow--so we won't get off the
land till you take the land off the scow and put it back where it
belongs and then we'll get off it because, gee whiz, scouts have no
right to trespass.
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