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PEE-WEE HARRIS F. O. B. BRIDGEBORO

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: Pee-wee reached out a leg to get a foot hold.]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PEE-WEE HARRIS F. O. B. BRIDGEBORO

by

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of
The Tom Slade Books
The Roy Blakeley Books
The Pee-Wee Harris Books

Illustrated by H. S. Barbour

Published with the approval of
The Boy Scouts Of America






Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers—New York

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1923, by
Grosset & Dunlap

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                CONTENTS

        I THE ONLY ORIGINAL
       II THE FATEFUL GUM-DROP
      III ANOTHER INSPIRATION
       IV THE CARLSON-BATES MEMORIAL
        V CHAOS AND CONFUSION
       VI NORTHWARD BOUND
      VII SAID PEE-WEE—
     VIII ENTER LIZZIE
       IX ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER
        X ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER—CONTINUED
       XI THE ENDLESS CHAIN
      XII IN CAMP
     XIII A SCOUT IS POLITE
      XIV UP IN THE AIR
       XV DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION—AND WAR
      XVI FIRST AID
     XVII GONE
    XVIII PEE-WEE DOESN’T WATCH HIS STEP
      XIX THE PANIC
       XX THE SCOUT
      XXI SUSPENSE
     XXII PEE-WEE LAYS DOWN THE LAW TO THE JUDGE
    XXIII WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS
     XXIV PEE-WEE FIXES IT
      XXV HE GOES TO CONQUER
     XXVI BUSINESS IS PLEASURE
    XXVII TOWNSEND AND HIS FLIVVER
   XXVIII ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER—CONTINUED
     XXIX “RESOURCES”
      XXX A SURPRISE
     XXXI TOWNSEND’S MIDDLE NAME
    XXXII THREE’S A COMPANY
   XXXIII THE SOLEMN VOW
    XXXIV END OF THE RELAY RACE

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                   PEE-WEE HARRIS F. O. B. BRIDGEBORO




                               CHAPTER I

                           THE ONLY ORIGINAL


It was often observed by Roy Blakeley that whenever Pee-wee opened his
mouth he put his foot in it. Unquestionably he put _something_ in it on
a very large percentage of the occasions when it was open, and there is
no denying that it was open a great deal of the time; probably a hundred
and twenty per cent of the time.

There was probably nothing about Pee-wee which he opened as often as his
mouth, unless it was his scout handbook. And on one occasion when he
opened his scout handbook, he put his foot in it with a vengeance. And
thereby hangs a tale. There can be no doubt that Pee-wee knew all about
scouting—oh _everything_. But the trouble was that he did not know all
about scouts. And this was his undoing.

It is a harrowing story with a frightful ending. Scouts right and left
died—laughing. As one of the girls connected with it said, “it was just
killing.”

The story, as I shall relate it, begins with Pee-wee sitting on the
railing of his porch, reading his scout handbook. He was glancing over
the hints on camping, for he and Townsend Ripley were going to Temple
Camp in Townsend’s flivver and although they would probably be not more
than two or three days making the trip, Pee-wee intended to carry a
commissary which would hold out for several weeks. He was not going to
run any risk of being stranded in the desert wastes of Ulster County
without supplies.

Pee-wee was now the “feature” of the new Alligator Patrol, of which
Townsend Ripley was patrol leader. But in a certain sense it might be
said that the new Alligator Patrol was a part of Pee-wee. It was just as
much a part of him as his voice and his appetite, and these were
certainly parts of him.

In a broad sense, it cannot be said that Pee-wee was _in_ anything
(unless it was the apple barrel in the cellar). Things were in Pee-wee,
all sorts of things, patrols, troops, ideas, everything. He consumed
everything that he touched. Even the Boy Scouts of America was a part of
Pee-wee.

Pee-wee had deserted the Ravens of the First Bridgeboro Troop for the
purpose of organizing a new patrol. That was at Temple Camp and he had
organized the Pollywogs, consisting of two members who for a while
submitted to his autocratic sway. But the Pollywogs became frogs and
hopped away. There was too much coming and going at Temple Camp for
permanent organization.

Returning to the more stable population of his own town, Pee-wee had
formed the Alligators and, like the true dictator that he was, had made
Townsend Ripley patrol leader. But the power behind the throne was Scout
Harris.

Shortly after the formation of the Alligator Patrol (which was intended
to form the nucleus of a new Boy Scouts of America) it was annexed (in
defiance of international law) to the First Bridgeboro Troop and thus
came under the wise and kindly supervision of Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster
of that familiar and lively troop.

With four patrols, Ravens, Silver Foxes, Elks and Alligators, Mr.
Ellsworth, that never-tiring friend of scouting, had his hands full. In
the new patrol was little Joe McKinny, alias Keekie Joe of Barrel Alley,
so really Mr. Ellsworth’s hands were more than full, they were
overflowing.

When school closed the entire troop excepting Pee-wee and Townsend
Ripley went to Temple Camp in the Catskills. The reason why Townsend
deferred his going was because his parents intended shortly to go to
Orange Lake, near Newburgh, to spend the summer and wished Townsend to
drive them there in the flivver.

He intended then to motor on to Temple Camp, which, as all friends of
the Bridgeboro boys know, is situated among the mountains five or six
miles in from Catskill Landing. Pee-wee, who loved everything, above all
things loved motoring, and he had lingered behind to accompany Townsend
and, as he said, “show him the right way.”

“You have our sympathy,” Roy Blakeley of the Silver Foxes had said to
the leader of the new patrol.

“That’s all right,” Townsend had said; “the flivver makes lots of noise
and will drown his voice. Don’t worry about me, I’m all right. We’ll
come rattling up to camp in a few days.”

“Maybe we’ll be there in two days,” Pee-wee had shouted.

“Don’t hurry,” Roy had answered.

“Maybe we’ll be there by Saturday,” Pee-wee had announced in a voice of
thunder.

“Any time you’re passing we’d be glad to see you—pass,” Roy had said.

“Drop in some time when you’re at the lake,” Connie Bennett had
remarked.

And so they had gone and Pee-wee had spent three rather lonesome days
waiting for Townsend’s parents to get ready to go to Orange Lake. It was
during that time that he had his great inspiration.

Pee-wee had had many inspirations; they seemed to grow wild in his
brain. But this was by far the greatest one of all. And it furnished an
example of how great events may flow from trifling causes. For this
world catastrophe started with a gum-drop. When that fateful gum-drop
hit the pavement in front of Pee-wee’s porch, it was like the famous
shot at the battle of Concord, which is said to have been heard around
the world.

If, with that gum-drop (several years before), Pee-wee had hit the Grand
Duke of Servia plunk in the eye, the universal conflagration could
hardly have been greater than it was in this momentous summer, the
events of which are now faithfully to be related.




                               CHAPTER II

                          THE FATEFUL GUM-DROP


Pee-wee sat upon the railing of the porch reading the handbook and
eating gum-drops. The particular gum-drop with which we are conceived
was black, symbolic of the dark cloud which overhung Pee-wee. He wore
his negligee scout attire. His scout hat was on the back of his head
exposing his curly hair.

Upon his round countenance was the well-known scowl which was partly the
result of his deep schemings and cogitations and partly the result of
his defensive attitude toward the troop, and toward Roy Blakeley in
particular. It was not the scowl of ill nature. Rather was it the scowl
of a hero. It seemed to say, “Come on, you bunch of jolliers, I can
handle you!” It was a scowl that no artist could paint. It was a
tremendous scowl to be worn by such a small boy, and it was said in the
troop that this was the cause of his being top-heavy and falling off
roofs and fences, and diving into cracker jars and provision barrels.
Certain it is that wherever Pee-wee went, he went head first.

It may have been because his left stocking was afraid of his scowl that
it always shrank from it, pursuing a downward course, and the act of
pulling up his stocking had become second nature to Pee-wee, so that he
did it instinctively whenever he started or stopped, whether it was
necessary or not.

He traveled in two directions, horizontally and vertically. When he
traveled horizontally he usually went scout pace. And when he went up in
the air (which he did on an average of a hundred times a day) he
traveled by means of his voice, which was of such volume as to strike
terror. With the exception of the inside of his head, the parts of him
which were most crowded to capacity were his pockets. To say that his
brain was like an attic would be doing it an injustice. Rather was it
like a rummage sale or like San Francisco after the earthquake.

There is no word in the English language suitable to describe Pee-wee’s
appetite. Though he carried bananas stuck in his belt like cartridges
and was usually provisioned with innumerable cookies, it cannot be said
that he ate between meals, since his life consisted of one continuous
meal. But he scrupulously observed one intermission from eating and that
was the time spent in sleeping. Ingenious though he was, and full of
inspirations, he had never hit on an idea for sleeping and eating at the
same time.

When Pee-wee stood upon the ground he was exactly four feet and
three-sixteenths of an inch high, but when he went up in the air his
greatness baffles description. When in scout negligee he always wore his
sleeves rolled up which somehow bespoke his terrible combativeness. When
he wore his jacket a score of merit badges were displayed instead of his
bare arms. These were interspersed with campaign and advertising
buttons. Upon the front of his scout hat was a lone button as large as a
fifty-cent piece, advising the beholder to use _Rizeman’s Yeast_.
Perhaps this was the secret of Pee-wee’s going up in the air so readily.

Need I conclude this faithful description by saying that Pee-wee was an
all-around scout of the first class? When he held up his right hand with
the three middle fingers extended, they reminded him of the three
helpings of dessert which he often had at Temple Camp, and he remembered
the twelve good scout laws because they were an even dozen like ten
cents’ worth of licorice jawbreakers.

So there he sat upon the railing of his porch looking over the camping
hints in the scout handbook and eating gum-drops. Suddenly he dropped a
gum-drop, a black one, and as he slid down from the railing in quest of
it in the flower-bed below, his handbook slipped out of his other hand
and fell among the bushes.

He first recovered the black gum-drop, and having dusted it off, placed
it where it would never again go down except inside him. Then he lifted
the handbook and casually noticed that it had fallen open at pages four
hundred and four and four hundred and five. These were in the section
describing scout games, and, as Pee-wee glanced half-interestedly at the
headings, his idle gaze was arrested by a particular heading and he read
the paragraph which followed it:

                               RELAY RACE

    One patrol pitted against another to see who can get a
    message sent a long distance in shortest time by means of
    relay of runners (or cyclists). The patrol is ordered out to
    send in three successive notes or tokens (such as sprigs of
    certain plants) from a point, say, two miles distant or
    more. The leader in taking his patrol out to the spot drops
    scouts at convenient distances, who will then act as runners
    from one post to the next and back. If relays are posted in
    pairs, messages can be passed both ways.

Suddenly, with a wild hallo, he announced to the world at large, “_I’ve
got an inspiration! I’ve got an inspiration!_ I’m glad I dropped that
gum-drop, because I’ve got an inspiration! I know what I’m going to do!
I’ve got a peach of an idea! _Oh, boy_, I know what I’m going to do!”

He did not know what he was going to do, far from it. But he knew what
he _thought_ he was going to do.

“I’m going to—I’m going to start something!” he said in the full
exuberance of his new idea.

Never in all his life did Scout Harris, Alligator, formerly Raven and
Pollywog, say a truer word. He was certainly going to start something.




                              CHAPTER III

                          ANOTHER INSPIRATION


“Now I know who I’ll have for a good turn guest! I’ll have somebody I
don’t know!” Pee-wee shouted, entering the house.

“Is that you, Walter?” his mother called downstairs.

“It’s me, and I’ve got an inspiration,” Pee-wee shouted. “Where’s the
duffel bag and things that were here in the hall?”

“Did you shut the screen door?” his mother called.

“Where’s the stuff I laid here?” Pee-wee demanded excitedly. “I left it
here ready so as—

“Did you shut the screen door, Walter?”

“No,—because there’s a fly inside and I want him to get out. Where’s my
camping stuff that I left in the hall?”

“It’s near your father’s golf sticks, under the hall table. Be sure to
wipe your feet.”

“Are there any more cookies?”

“Not unless you left some. Have you closed the screen door?”

“Sure, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to start a relay race
to Temple Camp and the last feller’ll be my good turn guest. I want the
map that’s in the coffee-pot in the duffel bag. I got the idea from a
licorice gum-drop that fell down where the pansies are—”

“I hope you didn’t eat it,” Mrs. Harris called.

“Don’t you know a scout isn’t supposed to waste anything?” Pee-wee shot
back.

“Well, then I think he shouldn’t waste his time packing up his things
and then pulling them all to pieces again,” said his mother gently, as
she appeared at the head of the stairs. The occasion seemed so momentous
to Pee-wee that Mrs. Harris could not refrain from surveying the
tumultuous proceedings from the top landing of the stairs. “You’re going
to get all over-heated about nothing, Walter,” she said gently. “Why
don’t you sit down and read a book?”

“You stick up for the handbook, don’t you?” Pee-wee demanded. “Well,
that’s where I got it, _so there_! I put my road map in the coffee-pot,
now where is it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Walter, but I wish you’d be careful of your
father’s straw hat. Put the rug down at the corner where you kicked it
up and do try not to get so excited.” She gazed ruefully down at the
litter at the foot of the stairs, where saucepan, shirts, belt axe,
fishing tackle, semaphore flags and every variety of preserved edibles
lay in utter chaos. “Pull that can of salmon out from under the
hat-rack, Walter, before you forget it. And get that can of evaporated
milk that has rolled into the parlor; I can see it under the piano. And
close the screen door tight; how many times have I told you—”

“It isn’t in the coffee-pot,” shouted Pee-wee; “there’s nothing there
but the mosquito dope and the ink—”

“You shouldn’t put bottles like that in the coffee-pot, Walter. Suppose
they should break—why, the ink might get into the coffee.”

“Lots of people like black coffee,” Pee-wee shouted, hurling things
right and left and suddenly pouncing on the elusive map.

“Have you got it?” called his despairing mother.

“Yop.”

“Where was it?”

“I never thought I’d need it, that’s why,” said Pee-wee abstractedly, as
he unfolded the map in high excitement. “I forgot I put it there.”

“Where did you put it?”

“It was rolled up in the sweater.”

“The sweater I told you to wear every night at camp? And you expected
never to unfold—”

“_Oh, look; oh, look; oh, look!_ Westwood’s the first place north!”
Pee-wee shouted. “It’s about ten miles, and that’s just right—”

“Walter, you’re not going to walk to Westwood,” said Mrs. Harris,
descending bravely into the arena. “I don’t know what your plans are but
you’re not going to walk to Westwood. And you’re going to pack these
things all up again before you leave the house. Do you think I want the
hall stand looking like a grocery store?”

“I’ll pack them up when I get back,” Pee-wee replied.

“No, you’ll pack them up again now and you’ll pick up that great slice
of greasy bacon from the rug. The idea of putting that in a shoe box! I
want—”

“Listen! Listen!” said Pee-wee, munching a fig which had fallen out of
an empty compartment of his writing case. “I’ve got a dandy
argument—listen, I—”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Walter.”

“Listen, you want me to remember to wear the sweater every night, don’t
you? Don’t you? You said you did, so don’t you?”

“I want you to pick up—”

“I tell you what I’ll do,” Pee-wee vociferated. “The thing that I like
best here is doughnuts, isn’t it? You admit I like doughnuts best, don’t
you? You said I could ask Martha—”

“I never told Martha to give you a whole pail full of them; why they’ll
be all stale—”

“Listen,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll take them out of the pail and wrap them up
in the sweater and every time I want one, I’ll have to go to the sweater
and gee whiz, that means about every hour, you ask Townsend when he
comes, and besides I always—_always_—eat one right after supper at
night, so I’ll have to go to the sweater, won’t I? And that’ll remind me
to put it on, won’t it? So now can I go to Westwood?”

“What do you want to go to Westwood for, Walter?”

“Listen, I’ll tell you, it’s a dandy idea.”




                               CHAPTER IV

                       THE CARLSON-BATES MEMORIAL


When Pee-wee spoke about his good turn guest he referred to a sort of
small bank balance which he had standing to his credit up at Temple
Camp.

Once upon a time there was a tragedy at Temple Camp; a scout lost his
life in trying to save the life of a comrade. Both went down in the
shadowy waters of a lake. They had both come from the same town; in
fact, had been members of the same troop. The fathers of these two
scouts resolved to perpetuate their memories at the camp by an
appropriate memorial which should exemplify at once the idea of heroism
and of comradeship. Temple Camp was full of endowments of various sorts;
special privileges could not be bought but could be won. Heroism bore
interest at Temple Camp.

But there was something peculiarly gentle in the idea underlying this
Carlson-Bates Memorial. For it perpetuated not only the strong quality
of heroism but the gentler quality of friendship. And this quality of
friendship was insisted upon. It was quaint and unique because it was a
living memorial. The memory of those two who had gone was ever
perpetuated by the scouts themselves in a continuous exemplification of
scout comradeship.

The actual monument itself was simple enough. It was a little rustic
cabin in a quiet grove, removed from the turmoil of the camp. Birds sang
in the trees about it and squirrels poked their inquisitive eyes in and
about its interior, sometimes even availing themselves, uninvited, of
its open hospitality.

Within its one rustic apartment were two comfortable bunks, a tiny
library with _Carlson-Bates Memorial_ stamped on every book, a rough
writing table, a cupboard for provisions, and even a fireplace of field
stones, with two primitive high-backed chairs facing it. These looked as
if they might have belonged to Daniel Boone.

Flanking this rough fireplace were pictures framed in unbarked wood, one
on either side, of Horace Bates and Danny Carlson, scouts who had gone
down together in Black Lake.

In both of these portraits the boys seemed to be looking straight at the
beholder, and it was customary when showing a visitor over this tiny,
hallowed reservation, to ask him to guess which of the two pictures was
that of the would-be rescuer. There was nothing on either picture or
anywhere else about the spot which hinted at this, for the place was as
much a memorial to friendship as to heroism. Outside was another rough
fireplace, also built of field stone, and intended for cooking.

The Carlson-Bates Memorial was everything that a rustic abode for two
scouts should be. Money had not been spared to make it so, but care had
been taken that the power of money should not overstep itself by making
the place pretentious and modern. Over the fireplace, between the
portraits, was a rough-hewn board in which were burned the familiar
words which had a certain pathos there, TWO’S A COMPANY. On the center
table were writing paper and envelopes, appropriately coarse and ragged
on the edges, bearing the heading:

                         CARLSON-BATES MEMORIAL
                              TEMPLE CAMP

                            Two’s a Company

Down at camp there was a rough sign on one of the trees with an arrow
pointing; TO CARLSON-BATES MEMORIAL, it read. You followed a beaten path
up through the woods, across a little brook, to a spot as dim and solemn
and remote as any hermit’s cave. And there you were. Visitors, whose
casual expectations had pictured a marble monument, were wont to pause
in silent astonishment on reaching the spot. Girls usually said they
could live there for the rest of their lives.

Tom Slade, camp assistant, who usually took visitors to the quaint
little outpost, would snap his fingers at the squirrels and whistle at
the birds while the others gazed about captivated and enraptured.
Sometimes a squirrel would scurry up his khaki trousers and perch upon
his shoulder and he would tease it with some morsel or other while he
answered questions.

“Is it ever occupied?” visitors would ask.

“Oh yes, sometimes, but a scout has got to go some to win the
privilege,” Tom would answer. Then to the squirrel he would say in his
offhand way, “How ’bout that, Pete?”

“And does he live here all alone?” they would ask.

“No, he can invite a friend to stay all summer with him here. Can’t he,
Pete? Two’s a company, read that? Only the friend must be some one who
isn’t at camp. Pete usually steals all their food from them. Don’t you,
Pete?”

“And which is the one who tried to rescue the other?” would be another
query as the visitor gazed about.

“You’re not supposed to ask that,” Tom would laugh.

“But it _must_ be _known_,” a girl was almost sure to ask.

“Oh, it’s known,” Tom would say. “Danny, that one on the left, he was
the boy. But they were friends, that’s the point, hey, Pete?” he would
inquire of the squirrel.

“It isn’t true that the place is haunted, is it?” was another question.
“That colored cook you have says their ghosts come here in the dead of
night.”

“Chocolate Drop?” Tom would smile. “Oh, you’re likely to hear all sorts
of things from him.”

On the way back through the woods, Tom would usually be more
communicative. “You know scouts have to do good turns, don’t you? Well,
if any scout does six good turns, _big ones_, that are passed on by the
trustees, he can live there for the rest of the summer and invite one
other boy to spend the summer there with him. See? Provisions for two
are sent up from cooking shack—the kids have no expenses. You see it’s a
memorial of one great big good turn that didn’t work out, and of the
friendship those two fellows had for each other.

“Let’s see, this summer it wasn’t occupied at all. Last summer a scout
from Boston was up there and he invited a poor little shaver from his
home town to share it with him. They lived on beans, those two. Did
their own cooking mostly. Summer before that, let’s see—nobody. You see
a scout has got to put over six big ones, then after that he’s got to be
a _friend to one particular_ fellow. He has to be host. Pretty good
idea, huh? Private cabin, stationery, all primeval inconveniences, and
everybody coming up with kodaks to take their pictures.”

“Oh, I should think it would be _bliss_ living there,” one girl remarked
after a visit to the hallowed spot, “and the idea of two’s a company, I
think that’s just _wonderful_.”

“That’s the idea,” said Tom as they followed the trail down.

“Friendship means just two, don’t you think?” the girl asked, edging her
way into a line of talk which girls delight in. “Just two, alone,
together. Isn’t the idea _sweet_? _Friendship!_”

“That’s the dope,” said Tom.

“And is any one going to live there next summer?”

“Oh goodness, yes,” laughed Tom; “very muchly. I suppose I ought to be
very proud, he’s a scout from my own home town in New Jersey.”

“Isn’t that _wonderful_! And he did six _heroic deeds_?”

“Good turns,” said Tom; “real ones. He specializes on those. He eats
them raw.”

“Oh, and who is he going to invite up?”

“Now you’ve got me,” said Tom. “All I know is he sprang six stunts and
went home with the Carlson-Bates certificate. He can invite whoever he
pleases. He usually blows in about the Fourth of July; he goes off on
the Fourth, they say home in Bridgeboro.”

“I should think you _would_ be proud,” the girl said. “Is he tall?”

“Tall? Oh yes, he’s about six feet three inches or three feet six
inches, I forget which. But he’s a great hero, in fact, he’s eight or
ten heroes.”

“I never know whether to believe you or not,” the girl said. “Will you
tell me his name?”

“Positively,” said Tom. “His name is Harris—Walter Harris.”

“Oh, how proud he must be,” said the girl. “Just to think how he’ll live
up there all alone with some poor—oh, I think it’s _wonderful_. And his
summer will be consecrated to friendship. Do you know how I picture him?
I picture him as tall, and—and—sort of slender and athletic. Not exactly
dignified but—you know—kind of quiet and reserved. Like a—oh, you know
what I mean—like a—kind of _aloof_ and _silent_. That’s the
word—_aloof_. I picture him as being _different_ from other boys.
Isolated.”

“Oh, he’s different,” said Tom.




                               CHAPTER V

                          CHAOS AND CONFUSION


It was ten months after the conversation just recorded and the momentous
summer had come around, when our hero, so tall, slender, athletic and
silent, sprawled on the parlor floor near the front hall and squirmed in
heroic contortions in his endeavor to reach a can of spaghetti which he
had supposed was under the Victrola cabinet.

“It isn’t there,” he said; “I had two cans; where’s the other one?”

“I don’t know, Walter,” the hero’s mother was tempted to observe as she
sat watching his frantic maneuverings; “you’re a boy scout and claim to
be so good at tracking and trailing, I should think you could trail a
can of spaghetti.”

“Cans of spaghetti aren’t wild animals,” Pee-wee thundered. “That shows
how much you know about scouting. Even you don’t know what a relay race
is.”

“Well, I know you’re not going to Westwood for any purpose whatever
until you’ve picked up all the things you scattered about and repacked
them. Suppose Townsend should come for you this afternoon. Isn’t a scout
supposed to be prepared? He’ll find you off on some wild-goose chase—”

“All I have to do is to start the ball rolling,” Pee-wee said,
struggling to his feet after triumphantly recovering the can of
spaghetti. “Then it will take care of itself.”

“I think you’ve started enough things rolling this morning, Walter. Is
that a bottle of olives under the leather chair? I never told Martha she
could give you that.”

“Will you listen?” Pee-wee pleaded in dramatic despair. “Is a relay race
anything like cans of stuff? Do you think I’m going to roll cans of
spaghetti and things all the way to Temple Camp? A relay race is where
one scout—suppose I should send a letter to—_will you please listen?_”

“I’m listening, Walter.”

“I’m going to choose a fellow to visit me and stay with me at Memorial
Cabin, ain’t I?”

“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ Walter. Yes, you are.”

“Well, you want to see me do it the scout way, don’t you?”

“I thought you might ask Mrs. Gardner’s son; they’re very poor—”

“I’m going to start a relay race to Temple Camp, that’s better. And the
last feller, the one that brings me the letter, he’ll be the one to stay
with me and have my hospital—tal—”

“Hospitality, Walter.”

“Hospitalality, that’s what I mean. I’m going to write the letter and
take it to Westwood, because that’s north of here and it’s on the way to
Temple Camp and I know scouts there. Then the scout I give it to will
take it to—to—maybe to Haverstraw or some place like that and give it to
another scout and he’ll take it to—maybe to—to—Newburgh, say—and he’ll
give it to another scout that’ll take it to—to—to—to—I didn’t decide
yet, but anyway he’ll give it to a scout that takes it to Kingston, and
he’ll take it to another place to a scout that’ll take it to Catskill,
and the one that brings it to me at Temple Camp—”

“You mean you’re going to send a letter to yourself, dear?”

“Sure, but I’ll be in a different place when it comes to me, I’ll be in
Temple Camp; see?”

“I see, but it seems like a good deal of running and hiking all for
nothing. You write a letter to yourself and then motor up to Temple Camp
and wait for the letter. Isn’t that the idea? I think it would be better
to take Mrs. Gardner’s poor little lame boy up in the car with you.
You’re going to a great deal of trouble and putting a number of other
boys to a great deal of trouble just to get one boy. They’re going to
get all over-heated—”

“It’s in the handbook! It’s in the handbook!” Pee-wee shouted. “It’s in
the handbook about relay races. You told Mr. Ellsworth the handbook is
all right, _so now_! The fellers get their fun out of the relay race. A
relay race can be thousands and millions of miles long without anybody
getting tired out. In most everything that a lot of people are in, only
one wins, doesn’t he? Let’s hear you answer that. Maybe each one’ll only
go about seven or eight miles, and maybe he’ll win a merit badge or
something doing that much. Maybe one of them is trying for his
first-class badge, how do _you_ know, and he has to go seven miles
anyway. All the scouts will be crazy about it, you see! What do they
care who wins? Anyway, it isn’t who wins, because the last one is the
one who lands at camp—”

“And gives you the letter you wrote to yourself?” his mother asked
mildly.

“Sure,” said Pee-wee, quite out of breath; “and all I have to do is to
start the ball rolling by going to Westwood, because you only have to
hike going the one way, so can I go to Westwood? You have to say yes,
because you told Mr. Ellsworth and dad and everybody that the handbook
is all right and it’s in the handbook about relay races.” He paused
again, and came up for air.

During this interval his mother casually inspected the road map and the
handbook. “Well,” said she finally, “all I can say is that I think you
have too many schemes and you’re going to get all over-heated and—”

“Will you answer me one question?” Pee-wee demanded.

“Yes dear, what is it?”

“A scout is supposed to give pleasure to others, isn’t he? They’re _all_
going to have fun, aren’t they? Maybe the others will even have more fun
than the last one; maybe he’ll be sorry he wasn’t one of the others;
see?” This seemed likely enough considering his imposed proximity to
Pee-wee for the summer. “Maybe the others’ll be the lucky ones,” Pee-wee
added.

“Well, you are to promise me that you won’t walk farther than Westwood,”
his mother said, yielding.

“Yop, sure I will, I mean I promise.”

“And I think this outlay race, or whatever you call it, is perfect
nonsense. The last boy will never get there, Walter; you’ll never see
him. There are too many slips between cup and lip, Walter.”

“Not with me,” Pee-wee vociferated. Which was true enough, for the full
cup always reached Pee-wee’s lips safe and sound. “You can ask Roy
Blakeley if I don’t always succeed, and I can prove it by Minerva
Skybrow, because didn’t I get all the eats at her lawn party?”

“I don’t want you to be always boasting of that, Walter.”

“Anyway, it shows I’m lucky, and a relay race is something scouts _have
to_ do. I could start a relay race around the world and nobody would
have to get tired.”

“Well, I think it would be better, Walter, for you to talk it over with
Townsend first; he’s your patrol leader.”

“He always does what I say,” said Pee-wee.

“And I think it would be very much better for you to leave half these
things at home and make room for poor little Teddy Gardner in the auto.
I can’t imagine why you should take that nickel tube from the old vacuum
cleaner with you.”

“On account of the stars,” Pee-wee said.

“You’re not going to vacuum clean the stars, are you?”

“No, but I can put a lens in it and make a telescope out of it and study
the stars, can’t I? Don’t you know scouts study astronomy? You don’t
suppose I’m going to listen to music all the time, do you, just because
I take some old Victrola records, do you? We can eat off those, can’t
we?”

By the time he had gathered up his miscellaneous equipment and repacked
it, his mother had resumed her sewing upstairs, but she called to him
when she heard him go forth on his path of glory:

“Walter!”

“Yop.”

“What are you eating?”

“A doughnut.”

“Did you shut the screen door?”

“N—n—no—yop. Now it’s shut,” And he was gone.




                               CHAPTER VI

                            NORTHWARD BOUND


As far as it is possible to reduce Pee-wee’s ideas to a common
denominator, they comprehended a scheme somewhat as follows. I hesitate
to ask the reader to study a map in vacation time, but road maps are not
so bad, and if you will glance at the crude one which I have included
here, you will see that the Hudson River formed a sort of backbone to
Pee-wee’s pilgrimage and colossal enterprise. The Hudson River rises
somewhere or other, pursues a southerly course, and empties into the
Hudson Terminal, whence it derives its name.

From the neighborhood of Bridgeboro there is a state road which runs up
through Tuxedo, Newburgh, Kingston, Saugerties, Catskill and points
north. It goes so far that it runs out of our story altogether, and it
is a very good road except for motorcycle cops who lurk in the bordering
woods. It does not run directly north from Bridgeboro but (as you may
see) makes a rather sweeping curve between Bridgeboro and Newburgh. From
that point north it runs pretty straight along the river. The bee-line
way to go from Bridgeboro as far as Newburgh would be up through
Westwood, Nanuet, West Haverstraw, and Fort Montgomery. From this latter
point the hiker might (only scouts prefer not to) follow the state road
all the way up to Catskill.

Now it was these towns somewhat east of the state road in its lower
section that Pee-wee picked out as the points of his famous relay race.
He did not intend to be autocratic in this matter and when the letter to
himself was once out of his own hands, the hikers might go as they
pleased so far as he was concerned. The one requirement was that each
relay hiker should move _northward_ to a town or village where it was
known that scouts could be found.

Pee-wee’s own responsibility would end at Westwood, which he now set out
to invade, and where he intended to let loose his contagious enthusiasm.
Then he would return to Bridgeboro and, on the morrow, set forth in the
flivver for Temple Camp, where he would live in austere retirement
awaiting the lone, unknown hiker who would be his guest and friend.

But before we accompany Pee-wee to his own chosen terminal we must pause
to scan the letter which he prepared for eventual delivery to himself:

    To Walter Harris if they don’t know who you mean ask for
    Pee-wee Temple Camp Leeds Ulster County N. Y. This letter is
    brought by relays and each scout that gets it takes it to
    another scout only he has to be sure to go north toward
    Temple Camp everybody up that way knows where that is and
    knows me two. Whoever brings it to me and delivers it into
    my hand stays at Temple Camp for the rest of the summer and
    his meals free absolootly positivly and they always give to
    helpings sometimes and bunks in Mamoriel Cabin with me
    _posativiy sure_.

    P.S.—This is true. and I mean it.

                                       Walter Harris,
                                               Alligator Patrol.

    I mean Green County

With this official passport into the golden realm of Temple Camp, safely
deposited in his trouser pocket, his scout handbook as a kind of high
legal authority stuck in his back pocket, and the road map stuck in his
belt, Pee-wee sallied forth from Bridgeboro eating an apple.

The last that was seen of him by any inhabitant of Bridgeboro was when a
jitney driver saw him hurl the apple core at a willow tree along the
road on the northern outskirts of Bridgeboro. He was then going about
three miles an hour, scout pace. The jitney driver saw him take another
apple out of his pocket. The weather was clear and warm, the wind north
by east.




                              CHAPTER VII

                             SAID PEE-WEE—


Pee-wee knew who he wanted to see at Westwood and that was Alton Beech,
a star scout, whom he had met at a scout rally in Bridgeboro. He knew
him for an A-1 all-around scout, and the merriest fellow he had ever met
into the bargain.

Alton Beech, as Pee-wee remembered him, had a smile that could not be
washed off or sandpapered off; it was absolutely warranted. Alton had
seemed to like Pee-wee, and the mascot of the Alligators was now going
to draw this genial scout acquaintance into the terrible maelstrom of
his enterprises. He looked for Beech in the ’phone book and was told by
some one (it seemed to be a girl speaking) that Alton was mowing the
lawn.

“You don’t need to call him,” Pee-wee said; “because I’ll drop around.”

“Oh, that will be so nice,” said the voice; “you’ll find him on the
lawn.”

Alton Beech deserted his mower upon Pee-wee’s appearance at the low
fence and came over and talked with him. They sat side by side on the
fence and Pee-wee found Alton not only acquiescent but enthusiastic.
“It’s a great idea,” he said, “only I don’t know who’ll take the next
jump unless I do it myself.

“Let’s see your map. The next jumping off place above this would be—six
or seven miles is enough for a hike, hey? Let’s see, the next place
above here would be—would be—let’s see—Spring Valley. They’ve got a
pretty good bunch of scouts up there, too. Then one of that crowd could
take a hop, skip, and a jump up to—Haverstraw, I should say. Oh, it
ought to be easy as pie. Something like passing the thimble, hey? I
could go to-morrow if it comes to that.

“I know Charlie Norton in Spring Valley; he’s a fiend for hiking. I was
up there one day and he hiked home with me and I didn’t want to be
impolite so I hiked back with him, and he was going to hike back here
with me again only his mother sent him to the store. He sticks like
glue, that fellow.”

“That’s the kind of a fellow I like,” Pee-wee enthused.

“Oh, yes,” said Alton Beech, “he runs up moving stairways, that fellow
does. That’s a pretty good letter you wrote, Bridgeboro.”

“It’s kind of official like,” Pee-wee said.

“I just happened to think,” said Beech, “that there ought to be some
pretty good scouts up at Bear Mountain; that’s only about ten miles
above Haverstraw, you know. Then there’s a boys’ camp up at New Paltz,
too. There must be a lot of scouts in Kingston. Oh, it’ll be like a row
of dominoes.”

“You said it,” vociferated Pee-wee. It was so seldom that any one ever
gave unqualified approval of his schemes that he felt highly elated at
Beech’s spirit of ready cooperation. “It was an—an inspiration,” he
said.

“Some idea,” said Beech.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Pee-wee asked.

“Oh, I don’t know; short runs are best, that’s what _I_ think.”

“That’s what I think, too,” said Pee-wee.

“You see each scout has got to find another before he comes back—”

“Sure,” Pee-wee interrupted; “he has to show resource, that’s another
good thing about it. And it’ll be a lot of fun because it’ll be kind
of—you know—it’ll be kind of like a—a grab-bag sort of, because I don’t
know what I’m going to get.”

“You might get a lemon,” mused Beech.

“Scouts aren’t lemons,” Pee-wee shouted. “Anyway, the one that reaches
me has to take a good hike before he gets there, hasn’t he? So that’ll
prove he’s all right, won’t it? Gee whiz, I feel sorry for the others,
but I can’t help it, can I? They’ll have adventures hiking, won’t they?”

“Oh sure, leave it to them.”

“That’s what _I_ say,” Pee-wee agreed.

“I was just thinking,” Beech mused, “I’ve got to make test four for the
first-class badge—”

“I know that one,” Pee-wee interrupted, excitedly, “you’ve got to make a
round-trip to a point seven miles away, that’s fourteen miles, and
you’ve got to have a witness and you’ve got to write a satisfactory
account of it when you get back; I passed that one. My scoutmaster said
the hike I took was seven miles long and the account I wrote of it was
seven miles long. Anyway, I believe in giving good measure, don’t you?”

“Sure thing. I was just wondering when you showed up whether going round
and round and round with a lawn-mower would be a round-trip—”

“It’s a teckinality,” said Pee-wee.

“I bet I’ve pushed that little old lawn-mower seven miles this morning,”
said Beech, “and you see that way I don’t have to make a trip seven
miles and back, because I’m always back; it’s a good idea. Do you think
I could get away with that?”

“Nnnnooo!” with the authority of one who knew the scout law. “Because
how about a witness?”

“I thought of that,” said Beech; “there’s a hop-toad on the lawn, I’ve
passed him a dozen times; he must have seen everything.”

“It’s got to be a brother scout,” Pee-wee said; “hop-toads don’t count.
Anyway, you really don’t have to have a witness.”

“Sure of that?”

“Sure, I’m sure,” said Pee-wee.

“Well then,” said Beech, “why couldn’t I take care of the first relay,
seven miles and back? I’ll trot up to Haverstraw and give them good
measure.”

“Gee whiz,” said Pee-wee, “I like you. I wish you were going to be at
Temple Camp.”

“I’m on the wrong end of the line,” said Beech. “I bet that’s a pretty
nifty place up there. Bathing and everything?”

“Bathing?” shouted Pee-wee. “You _said_ it! Bathing and boating and
fishing and stalking and tracking and everything. And the cabin where
I’m going to live—Memorial Cabin—it’s about a half a mile from the
regular camp, and you can live there all separated from the camp and do
your own cooking and—and—and eating—”

“That must be fine to do your own eating,” said Beech.

“It’s—it’s requested,” said Pee-wee.

“What, that you do your own eating?” Beech asked.

“No, I mean it’s all by itself with nobody to bother you, sort of.”

“Oh, you mean sequestered,” said Beech.

“And Chocolate Drop—he’s the colored cook—he sends stuff up for two all
through the season. You can cook it yourself if you want to. That’s the
way I’m going to do, because it’s kind of more wild like. Wouldn’t it be
dandy if I got a feller that’s an Eagle scout, hey? I’ve got a patrol,
the Alligators, only I’m not going to stay with them this summer. I’m
going up to-morrow in an auto with my patrol leader.”

“That isn’t very wild like, is it?” Beech asked innocently.

“In an old Ford it is,” Pee-wee said. “I wouldn’t ride in a Packard,
because nothing ever happens to Packards—Cadillacs either. But it’s all
right for a scout to go in a Ford, because things happen to Fords and
it’s adventure. See? I’m going up to-morrow by the state road and when I
get there, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to have Chocolate
Drop send up canned stuff for two, enough to last all summer, and
besides I’m taking a lot of things with me, doughnuts and bacon and
spaghetti and salmon and, oh, gee, a lot of things.”

“Well, I’ll start the ball rolling,” said Beech. “I’ll bang up to Spring
Valley first thing in the morning and see if I can find Norton. I’ll get
my first-class badge in the bargain, so don’t have any vain regrets
about _me_. Kill two birds with one stone, hey? I dare say the last
scout will come trotting in in a few days. So long, I’ll see you again
some time, Bridgeboro. Hike up some Saturday in the fall, why don’t you?
Ever play basket-ball?”

Pee-wee liked Alton Beech. He was attracted by the off-hand, friendly
way in which Beech came over and sat on the fence with him, as if they
had known each other for ages. Pee-wee was accustomed to hearing his
schemes and enterprises treated with disrespectful mirth and it fired
him with the wildest expectations of sensational triumph to know that
his great relay race was in competent hands. It would have served his
mother right if she could have seen Alton Beech fall at her son’s feet.

As he waited for the bus back to Bridgeboro, he pictured the lone,
unknown scout who would cover the last stretch of country to Temple
Camp. Perhaps this scout would arrive at midnight, out of the dark
woods, like some Indian runner in days of yore. Who would he be? What
would he look like? What exciting narratives passed from scout to scout
in the long series, would he have to recount? He would bring tidings of
the others and what they had done and what had happened along the way.

Of one thing Pee-wee was resolved. He was not going to say a word at
Temple Camp about his great enterprise. And he was going to swear
Townsend Ripley to secrecy. He would take up his abode in mysterious and
solemn isolation at Memorial Cabin, explaining that his guest and
comrade would shortly arrive. When he should arrive, then the sensation.
He was rather sorry that Alton Beech would not be that last, lonely
deputation. But anyway, Alton would improve the occasion to win his
first-class badge, and that was something.

Pee-wee was not the only one who liked Alton Beech; everybody liked him.
He was so agreeable and friendly and ready and accommodating. He did not
jump out of his skin at every new idea as Pee-wee did. But he was always
ready to try something—anything. He never objected. He was not the great
inventor and organizer and promoter that Pee-wee was. He had not
Pee-wee’s open mouth. But he had an open mind. The scouts of Westwood
liked him immensely. _All_ scouts liked him immensely.

That was just the trouble.




                              CHAPTER VIII

                              ENTER LIZZIE


When Pee-wee spoke about Fords he was thinking of Townsend Ripley’s
Ford, and when he said that things happened to it he never said a truer
word. Many things had happened to Pee-wee, but not nearly so many as had
happened to Townsend Ripley’s Ford.

Townsend’s Ford had a long and checkered history extending years back
prior to the time when it enters this story. It got on the downward path
when it was very young, continued going down till it struck a tree and
terminated its youthful escapade upside down in a mill pond.

One would say that this should have been a lesson to it, but no such
thing. Within a week it had parted with one of its fenders. The life of
a Packard or a Cadillac would be tame and prosy, indeed, compared with
the sprightly history of Townsend’s Ford. Townsend often said that
Pee-wee was the Ford among scouts. Perhaps it was because he made so
much noise and things were always going wrong with him.

When Townsend’s flivver came to make its home with the Ripley family it
was seven years old, minus a top, and with three fenders which looked
like ancient tomato cans. In regard to the other fender, it was not. It
might have been in good enough condition, only it wasn’t there. Townsend
said it was the best of the four, but no one had ever seen it.

A unique feature of the car was its pair of headlights. These, to put it
plainly, were cross-eyed. Their columns of light formed an X on the
smooth highways. Townsend had done his best to cure this affliction but
had only made it worse. The lights had a way of joggling back to their
eccentric posture. Nuts, wrenches, wire and clothesline, were all in
vain. Townsend’s car could not look you in the face.

Townsend had not reached the age at which a citizen of New Jersey is
thought to be qualified to drive a car. His was one of those cases where
a license may be secured under the requisite age, upon satisfactory
proof of competency. He was just seventeen. The exact age of the car is
unknown. It was undoubtedly old enough to enjoy the respect due to age.
But it did not enjoy this respect—far from it.

To see Townsend sitting upright on the front seat of his flivver,
utterly regardless of the mirth it occasioned, was as good as a circus.
Long familiarity with the car’s eccentricities had given him a sort of
magic power over it, so that it would obey him as a dog obeys its
master.

Certain it is that it would never start for anybody but Townsend. And it
is a fact that when he said “_lay down_” to it, it would stop. Some said
that these words of stern command were never uttered until the engine
had already made up its mind to “lay down.” If that is the case then
Townsend must always have sensed its intention well in advance, for it
invariably complied with his mandate.

On the morning following Pee-wee’s trip up to Westwood, the Townsend
flivver rolled up to Pee-wee’s home with Townsend at the wheel, looking
as if he were running a Rolls-Royce. In the rear seat sat Mr. and Mrs.
Ripley. Townsend pushed the horn button but the horn did not honk. He
then took the crank, which was lying on the floor, and reaching through
the opened windshield struck the hood with it. Instantly the horn began
to honk and would not stop honking till he hit the hood again. Townsend
did all this as a matter of course.

Presently our hero, laboring under a mountain of luggage, appeared.

“Can you take all this?” he called.

Townsend would never admit that there was anything he could not carry in
his Ford; if Pee-wee had appeared with a piano, his answer would have
been the same.

“Sure thing,” he called cheerily; “the more the merrier.”

It required a few minutes for Doctor and Mrs. Harris to chat with Mr.
and Mrs. Ripley and wish them a pleasant summer and to say, “A Ford
always gets you there.”

“Yes, but it’s so outlandish,” said Mrs. Ripley; “I positively think
that Townsend is proud of it. But it’s really amusing. Townsend, make it
say good-by for Doctor Harris. Doctor, I just want you to listen to it.”

“Giddap!” said Townsend soberly. “Say good-by.”

As it started the car gave forth a weird noise which was not unlike the
words _good-by_. A parrot would have to practice long to say it as well.

“Did you ever hear such a thing in your life?” Mrs. Ripley called back
to Doctor Harris. “It’s a broken spring, I think.”

“I’m going to teach it to say, ‘Be Prepared,’” said Townsend to Pee-wee.
“The scout motto, good idea, huh?”

There was no sign of a smile on his face.




                               CHAPTER IX

                       ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER


Townsend’s flivver, as he said himself, was slow but unsure and they
were three hours reaching Orange Lake. Here, at a pleasant summer
boarding house, Mr. and Mrs. Ripley alighted. It was funny to see with
what an air of sober complacency Townsend drove up the winding private
roadway and saying, “whoa,” stopped in front of a spacious veranda
filled with summer boarders.

“Make it talk for them,” whispered Pee-wee.

“I’ll make it say, ‘hurray,’” said Townsend. He leaned far out of the
car, rocking it somewhat, and it undoubtedly did utter an uncanny
response which sounded for all the world like that joyous call.

“Make it sit up and beg, can’t you?” asked a man in a hammock.

“I’ve got an inspiration,” whispered Pee-wee; “let’s make it talk and
take up collections wherever we go. Will you? We can get a lot of money
that way. I’ll pass around my hat now, shall I, and then we’ll make it
say ‘good-by.’”

“We don’t want any money,” said Townsend; “you’ll spoil all the fun. It
talks for love, like you. It doesn’t talk for money. I wonder if I could
borrow a hatchet while I’m here?” he asked aloud.

“You going to chop down your little Ford?” the genial occupant of the
hammock inquired.

It seemed that a hatchet was the only implement which would reach a
certain bolt and act as a screw-driver.

“Maybe it won’t talk any more if you do that,” Pee-wee warned.

“Oh, yes, it’ll sing for a while now,” said Townsend. And so it did, a
weird oriental tune, for eight or ten miles till they stopped to get
gasoline. This was at a little supply station in a shack and the
proprietor of the establishment could not be found. After wandering
about, and whistling and calling, Townsend decided to go on to the next
place.

“Have we got enough gas?” Pee-wee asked concernedly.

“I don’t know where the next place is,” Townsend said. “What do you mean
by enough?”

As Pee-wee never had enough of anything himself he was not able, when
put to it, to say just what was meant by that word.

“I don’t intend to take the seat up to find out,” said Townsend,
“because there isn’t any plug in the tank and every time I move the seat
straws from inside of it get into the gas supply and come out through
the carburetor. I’ve lost a lot of straw that way.”

By a series of gymnastic contortions, Townsend rocked the car and a
faint, distant splashing was heard below them. “We’ve got a couple of
gallons or so, I guess. Do you want to get out and pick up the rear
license plate?”

“How do you know it fell off?”

“It always falls off when I do that,” said Townsend.

They were in a pleasant country now, above Newburgh. Here the road runs
between the Hudson and the Wallkill Rivers. The car jogged faithfully
along, keeping up a sort of clanking lullaby except when it went over
bad places when it raised its voice into a medley of squeaks and rattles
like a traveling jazz band. Nothing seemed to surprise Townsend. He knew
all the noises and the mysterious depths whence they emanated.

They passed several rural garages, but at each one Townsend rocked the
car and received a faint, splashing reassurance from below the seat that
the gas was holding out. “We’ll get some at the next place,” he would
say.

So they traveled without mishap or adventure until dusk. Slowly the
wooded hills changed color, patches of crimson lingered on the summits
and faded and died away, leaving the heights in the solemn hue of the
deepening twilight. And then the gathering darkness. It seemed as if the
sturdy, clamorous, little flivver were all alone in the world, rattling
merrily on as the mantle of night fell.

The road wound like a ribbon through the dim country where miles and
miles of vineyards border the way. High in the air a solitary bird
soared through the darkening sky, imparting a suggestion of wildness and
loneliness to the scene.

Lights appeared in the few habitations which they passed. The voices of
frogs could be heard in ponds and brooks, sending up their outlandish
greetings to the night.

Somewhere in the vast stillness an owl was hooting. It was the wistful
hour of homesickness, if one is given to that, for in those solemn,
changing hours nature seems to be drawing her cloak about her and
withdrawing from human company. The merry little Ford rattled along, up
hill and down dale and around bends, and was pretty good company. Say
what you will, a Ford is a pretty good sport.




                               CHAPTER X

                  ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER—CONTINUED


“Now we’re coming to a place,” said Townsend, as a brazen sign greeted
them with the word GARAGE when they went around a bend. “Now we’ll give
Liz her supper, hey, Liz.”

“Y-kks,” said Liz.

“You made it do that?” said Pee-wee astonished.

“And at the next good place we’ll _all_ eat,” said Townsend. “We ought
to be able to scare up a grove or something to camp in.”

“I’m going to make a hunter’s stew,” said Pee-wee.

“At your peril,” said Townsend; “I’m going to have an omelet, if anybody
should ask you. That’s one great thing about the valve-in-head motor,
you can beat eggs with the rocker arms. With a Ford you have to beat
them by hand.”

At the garage they were doomed to disappointment. The proprietor,
wearing conspicuous suspenders and a straw hat as big as a parachute,
told them that the gasoline wagon had not come along that day. He had
not, it seemed, enough to take out a grease spot.

“How far is Mideno, or whatever they call it?” Townsend asked.

“Waaal naow, some sez ’ts seven mile n’ some sez eight,” said the
proprietor of the shack. “Yer keep right ter this here road. Purty soon
yer cum ter a hill n’ yer go up that n’ foller the main road, yer can’t
go wrong.”

“They keep gas there?” Townsend asked.

“Waal, they keep it but more’n like they’re closed up. There’s a circus
thar—”

“G—long, Liz,” said Townsend impatiently. By the time they reached the
foot of the hill it was dark. They started up gayly, their thoughts now
bent on supper and camping for the night. The car struggled up, pounding
but resolute, a model of indomitable perseverance. But after a while it
began to sputter and then it stopped and gave unmistakable evidence of
an intention to retreat down the hill again.

“Won’t it make the hill?” Pee-wee asked.

“Get out and put a couple of stones under the wheels,” said Townsend.
“The gas is too low, it won’t flow up hill.”

The flivver had balked, not in fear of the ascent, for it would have
been glad to walk up where elevators fear to go, but for the good and
sufficient reason that the gas tank was under the seat and the small
supply of gas within it at a lower level than the carburetor.

“It’s a gravity feed,” said Townsend; “your father’s car has a vacuum
pump.”

“Gravity, that means it’s serious, hey?” said Pee-wee.

“No, the situation isn’t grave,” laughed Townsend; “only I don’t know
whether we can turn around here or not, the road is so narrow.”

“Are we going home?” Pee-wee asked in great agitation.

“Positively not,” said Townsend. “The trouble with you is you’ve been
fed up on Pierce-Arrows and cars like that and you don’t know anything
about a real friendly, companionable car. This car is a pal, Kiddo.”

“Like my unknown pal, hey?” said Pee-wee.

“Something like that. We’ll just turn around and go up backwards. Then
the gas will flow like water.”

“Can you drive it all the way up backwards?” Pee-wee asked.

“Positively,” said Townsend, maneuvering to make the turn and at the
same time keep from ditching the car. “Once headed in the wrong
direction and our troubles are over. We’ll go the right way without any
trouble. I can even make her laugh going backwards, listen.”

The shabby little tin hero was now lumbering up the hill rear end first,
and the alteration of its plane caused several small articles to slide
down in the pan. “That’s a spark-plug and a couple of nuts,” Townsend
said. “I leave them there because I like to hear her laugh when things
go wrong. The Ford with the smile wins. She always starts to laugh when
she goes up hill backwards. G’long, Liz, you’ll make it. Laugh and the
world laughs with you.”

It was a very long hill and as Lizzie’s cross-eyed lights illuminated
the road they had traveled, Pee-wee looked down along the lighted area
and saw that the way was bordered with thick woods. As for Townsend, he
kept his gaze fixed behind him and steered the car with difficulty up
through the darkness.

“The great advantage of traveling this way,” said he, “is that if we run
over any one the lights shining down the road below us will show us that
we have done so. Keep your eye out down the hill and let me know if I
have run over any one.” At last they came to the top of the hill but
kept going backwards, because they hoped to find a suitable spot for
camping very soon, and it was easier to keep going than to turn.

“We don’t want to go down the other side of the hill this way, do we?”
Pee-wee asked.

“No, we’ll camp up here,” said Townsend; “I guess this spot right here
is as good as any. What do you say?”

“Gee whiz, it suits me,” said Pee-wee enthusiastically; “it’s nice and
lonesome and everything along here.”

Townsend ran the car a little off the road, stopped it and turned out
the lights. Then they took their things and entered the thick bordering
woods.




                               CHAPTER XI

                           THE ENDLESS CHAIN


They found a good camping spot about a hundred yards in from the road, a
little knoll on which they pitched a tent, although the foliage was so
thick overhead that they hardly needed it. Outside the shelter they
kindled a fire and fried some bacon, and sat by the companionable blaze
eating their supper.

To avoid the grease from the bacon they put the slices between crackers,
making sandwiches of them, and they were not half bad. This novel
dainty, however, suggested to Pee-wee’s inventive mind another which
proved (to Townsend at least) not so delectable. It consisted of a
banana with slices of bacon plastered against it.

“I know what we’ll call it,” said Pee-wee, munching one with unconcealed
relish, “a banakon, because that kind of suggests bananas and bacon
both. Or maybe a bacanna—that’s a better name, _bacanna_; hey? I
invented lots of things to eat. The man that invented Eskimo pies took
the idea from me, because I put shrimps between chocolate bars, and I
invented radish shortcake, too. Do you know how to make that?”

“Break it to me gently,” said Townsend.

“You take a piece of sponge cake,” said Pee-wee, “and you lay some
radishes nice and even on the top of it, then you take another—Oh, I
know what let’s do, let’s make ice cream cones out of birch bark, we can
roll it up just like cones, I know how to do it, and—”

“How about the ice cream?” laughed Townsend.

“We’ll use pot cheese,” Pee-wee said; “it looks just like ice cream. Pot
cheese cones, isn’t that a good idea? We’ll call them scout cones,” he
vociferated. “I’ve got a jar full of pot cheese and it won’t keep.”

He was right, it didn’t keep. In fifteen minutes it was all gone. They
made out a pretty good supper (except for the banana experiment) with
omelet and boiled rice and crackers.

“Most of the things our cook gives me don’t keep,” said Pee-wee.

“Yes, I noticed that,” said Townsend.

“Let’s open some salmon, hey?” Pee-wee suggested; “so as to finish the
rice, hey?”

“All right,” Townsend assented.

But things didn’t come out even; the salmon used up the rice and there
was some salmon left over.

“I tell you what let’s do,” said Pee-wee. “Let’s open a box of sugar
wafers so as to use up the salmon, hey?”

“All right,” assented Townsend.

But still things didn’t come out right. The sugar wafers put an end to
the salmon but there were still quite a few sugar wafers, and it was
necessary to open a jar of peanut butter to put the sugar wafers out of
business, which left them with a jar half full of peanut butter. A
detachment of Holland rusks was therefore called up to eliminate the
peanut butter. The Holland rusks tasted pretty good with peanut butter
on them, but without peanut butter they were dry.

“I don’t like them without anything on them, do you?” Pee-wee asked,
feeling his way to the next step.

“No, I don’t,” said Townsend; “they have about as much flavor as a
whisk-broom, but did you ever hear the story about the man with one leg
shorter than the other one? They sawed his right leg off to make it even
with his left one and they sawed it too short. So then they had to saw
his left one off to make it even with his right one. And they sawed off
a little too much so—”

“That’s a dandy argument,” shouted Pee-wee; “I tell you what let’s do.
We’ll throw the rusks away so the birds can get them and then start even
with two things.”

“If we throw the rusks away we _will_ be even,” said Townsend.
“Otherwise we’ll be like the man who ended by not having any legs.”

“That didn’t stop him from eating though,” said Pee-wee.

“Well, I’m going to stop _you_ from eating,” Townsend observed. “What do
you suppose would happen to you if they sawed off your appetite?”

“It would grow again,” said Pee-wee.

“Well,” laughed Townsend, “I’m going to saw off some sleep.”

“That’s another thing I like to do,” said Pee-wee.

“Sleep?”

“Yop.”

“How do you know you like to? How do you like to do a thing when you
don’t know you’re doing it? You can’t enjoy being asleep because you’re
asleep when you’re asleep. In order to enjoy being asleep you have to be
awake, and then you’re not asleep.” He tousled Pee-wee’s curly hair by
way of capping the argument. “So there you are, it can’t be did.”

“Do you call that logic?” Pee-wee roared. “Don’t you suppose I enjoy
doing lots of things when I don’t know what I’m doing?”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” Townsend laughed.

“Su—u—ure I do,” Pee-wee said, conclusively. “You can’t prove anything
by my not knowing what I’m doing because, gee whiz, then you’d have to
say I never have any fun, and nobody can say that. I didn’t know what I
was doing when I started the relay race, did I? Let’s hear you answer
that.”

“I can’t answer that,” said Townsend; “the relay race is your business.
But I’m mighty sorry you’re not going to be in the patrol cabin with us,
Kid; you see, the fellows in our patrol are new at Temple Camp.”

“Don’t you care,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll see you a lot. Gee whiz, when I’m
at Temple Camp I’m all over. That’s why they call me a scout at large,
only that doesn’t mean that I’m large.”

“No, I understand,” said Townsend; “but you’re a pretty big scout at
that.”

The intention of turning in for the night seemed to have passed for the
time being and Townsend idly threw some more sticks on the fire and sat
gazing into it, his hands clasped about his knees. He looked
ruminatively across the mounting blaze at the small scout who sat
opposite him, and as he looked, he smiled amusedly, yet kindly.

“I—I bet you like your flivver better than any other friend you’ve got,”
said Pee-wee.

“I bet I don’t,” said Townsend, with a kind of enigmatic smile. “So you
lose.”

“Anyway, I bet you like it ’cause it’s kind of old and sort of
ramshackle, I bet you do.”

“Maybe,” said Townsend.

“Gee whiz, anyway I like you better than any friend I’ve got except Roy
Blakeley, and he’s kind of more like an enemy only we’re good friends.”

Townsend laughed outright. “We’re going to have a great patrol, Kiddo,”
was all he said.

“_Sure_, we are, and I’m glad you’re the leader of it. I bet if you met
a big feller your own size you’d like him better than me, wouldn’t you?
Because I knew lots of fellers that were friends with me till they got
to know fellers their own size.”

“Yes?”

“Sure, I did. But anyway I have lots of fun. Gee whiz, I wouldn’t blame
you.”

“No? Well, how about the little Ford? You say you think I like that.”

“Better than a—a—an eight-cylinder Packard?”

“You said it.”

“Does that mean maybe you might like me better than a big feller?”

“Didn’t I just tell you you’re one of the biggest fellows I ever met?”

“I can’t be big if I’m small; do you call that logic?”

Townsend didn’t answer, but just sat there with his hands clasped about
his drawn-up knees, smiling, oh such an amused and friendly smile across
the fire.

“Hear that cricket?” said Pee-wee.

“Huh-huh,” said Townsend.

“Gee, you’re funny; I don’t understand you at all,” said Pee-wee. “I
never know what you really mean.”

“No?”

Then, perhaps by way of conveying what he meant, Townsend arose,
stretched himself, and as he lowered one of his upraised arms, gave
Pee-wee’s hair a good tousling and pushed him right over backwards.

“Time to turn in, Kid,” said he.




                              CHAPTER XII

                                IN CAMP


When they awoke in the morning they heard the steady patter of rain on
their little shelter. The downpour, broken by the friendly trees, fell
gently on the tent, but looking out they could see that the rain was
coming down in torrents. The sky was dull and cheerless.

“Rain before seven, clear before eleven,” said Pee-wee.

“Only it’s half-past eight, do you call that logic?” laughed Townsend.
“I bet Liz is good and wet; I should have turned the seats upside down
and tied my rain-coat over the hood. No matter. She ought to squeak fine
after this. Last year I had her singing the Star Spangled Banner after a
three days’ rain. What shall we do; eat?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and
surveying the woods. “How’d you sleep? Some rain, hey?”

“I’m going to start a fire and make coffee,” said Pee-wee.

“Now that’s what I call a _real_ inspiration,” said Townsend, sleepily.
“I didn’t hear the alarm clock, did you?”

“There isn’t any,” said Pee-wee.

“That’s probably why I didn’t hear it,” Townsend yawned. “Where are you
going to get dry wood?”

“Didn’t you see me roll that piece of log under the tent last night?”
Pee-wee asked him. “That’s one of the things you always have to do first
of all in case it rains next day. Now where would you be if I hadn’t
brought my belt-axe?”

“I’d be in tears,” said Townsend. “We haven’t got much gasoline to burn.
We might fry some griddle-cakes on the engine I suppose. I wonder if we
could beat eggs with the fan? You start getting things ready while I
trot over and wake Liz up.”

He soon returned, reporting that the car was all right and better for
sleeping in the fresh air. He found Pee-wee valiantly demolishing the
small end of the log which he had thoughtfully put under cover the night
before. A merry little fire was soon blazing away under a tree, defying
the rain.

And pretty soon the fragrant odor of coffee permeated the damp air. If
you ever hear any one say anything against coffee tell him that he has
probably never been stalled in a little tent in the woods on a rainy
day. If he continues to talk against it, don’t listen to him, walk away.
He is like a man who would slander a life preserver.

Some people put an egg shell in coffee, and I think that is good. But a
spool of linen thread is not so good. Pee-wee used a spool of linen
thread in his coffee. At all events there was a spool of linen thread in
the coffee-pot and several emergency buttons.

“Are these supposed to flavor it?” Townsend asked.

“They happened to be in there,” said Pee-wee.

“Hadn’t we better strain it for needles and hooks and eyes and things?”

“Don’t you know scouts have to economize space?” Pee-wee shouted. “You
put one thing in another when you’re packing camping things. See if
there’s a bottle of ink in it.”

Townsend fished around in the coffee-pot with a lead pencil and
pronounced it free of other contents. They drank their coffee, one out
of a collapsible metal cup, the other out of an empty mustard can.
Coffee is very good in such receptacles. It should never be sipped from
a respectable breakfast cup, _never_. But if you use a mustard can be
sure that there are no pieces of chalk or crayon in it. These things are
good in tracking and blazing, but not in coffee.

That morning, Pee-wee tried his hand at griddle-cakes, while his patrol
leader gazed wistfully on. They were not half bad. And when you come
right down to it, coffee out of tin cans, and griddle-cakes not too
delicate, form a toothsome repast on a dull, rainy morning, when the
drops patter down on your cosy little shelter and the little fire burns
merrily outside, and the landscape is hazy and you have no forks or
spoons. If you go to having forks and spoons you will spoil it all.

[Illustration: Pee-wee and Townsend watched the chipmunk.]




                              CHAPTER XIII

                           A SCOUT IS POLITE


They liked it so much lolling under their little tent in the rain that
they lingered there till noon-time. The water trickled down the little
knoll and they were as dry as if surrounded by an elaborate drain ditch.
It is fascinating doing nothing and just watching the rain; that is, it
is when you are camping and in no particular hurry.

Their talk was as it should have been, aimless, bantering, idle. They
told Ford jokes by the dozen. Pee-wee told about Temple Camp. They
discussed the great relay race.

For fully half an hour they watched a beetle trying to climb up a wet,
slippery leaf. They watched this beetle and found it diverting. They
stood an olive bottle some yards from their shelter and, sitting in the
doorway of the tent, threw pebbles at it. They counted the drops that
fell slowly, one after another, from a limb.

Oh, the things they did were very important. They put a griddle-cake
directly under the dropping point to see if in time the drops would bore
a hole through it. But a chipmunk came and took the griddle-cake and
they watched him eat it.

Every now and then they wondered if it was going to clear and told some
more Ford jokes. They watched a busy little glutton of a bird hopping
about and pulling worms out of the ground and they wondered how he knew
just where to plunge his bill in. They even went out to see if there
were holes in the ground, but there were none. Then they told ghost
stories.

At last, about three o’clock in the afternoon the rain ceased to fall,
though the sky continued dull and threatening.

“Now’s our time to make the break if we’re going to,” said Townsend. “We
can’t make Catskill to-day, no matter what. The roads will be horrible.
What do you say? Shall we move on?”

“It’s nice here,” said Pee-wee.

“It is nice,” said Townsend.

“I tell you what let’s do,” said Pee-wee; “I’ll throw this stone at the
bottle and I’ll try to hit it; see? If it hits we stay and if it misses
we go, and I hope it hits, because I’d rather stay. We didn’t play
mumbly-peg yet; we can do that.”

So it happened that their going partook of the same delightfully aimless
character as the way in which they had spent the day in their cosy
little tent. For Pee-wee missed the bottle. But just the same he didn’t
leave it there, for a scout has as much respect for the woods as he has
for the parlor in his home. Not a sign did they leave of their presence,
except a little charred spot under a tree. They did not want to go, but
now the die was cast and they would not go back on their resolution.

The patient little Ford was waiting along the roadside and really seemed
glad to see them. Townsend toppled the seat cushions over to their
proper positions, threw their camping paraphernalia in behind, then he
and Pee-wee climbed into the front seat, and Townsend instantly got out
again to crank the engine. “I dreamed I had a self-starter,” he said.

It required several crankings to get started, but at last they were off,
the car looking quite clean after its bath.

“Good-by, old camp,” said Townsend as they rattled away.

“So long,” called Pee-wee, waving his hand.

“Gee whiz, it was nice in there, wasn’t it? We had a lot of fun there,
didn’t we?”

“Sure thing.”

“If two fellers like each other they kind of have fun anyway, don’t
they?”

“That’s what they do. You read the books and you’d think you couldn’t
find any fun this side of South Africa. How about that, Liz?”

“Kkkkkk,” said the Ford.

“How did you make it do that?” Pee-wee asked.

“It’s the back door on the other side; slam it, will you?”

“Don’t forget we’ve got to hunt for gasoline,” said Pee-wee.

“The boy hunters,” said Townsend, “hunting for gasoline. Leveling his
rifle, our young hero crouched behind the garage, fixing his eagle eye
upon the distant gas pump—”

“You’re crazy,” said Pee-wee.

“When suddenly,” said Townsend, “a terrific report rent the air and
there at the brave lad’s feet—”

“What?”

“Was a blown-out tire.”

“That shows how much sense you have,” said Pee-wee, with a kind of
mingled pride and amusement in his friend; “you’re crazy.”

They rattled merrily down hill for half a mile or so, then around a bend
and a couple of miles along a straight, level road. Then they made
another curve and stopped, plunk in front of the little supply shack
where the man with the suspenders and the straw hat had given them the
direction. He was sitting on a bench in front of his place with a straw
in his mouth and his eyes squinted as if he had not moved hand or muscle
since the previous night.

Townsend did not appear to be at all surprised; he maintained a
dignified calm, but Pee-wee was plainly dumbfounded.

“How do you do?” said Townsend.

“_What does it mean?_” Pee-wee gasped.

“It means we forgot to thank this gentleman for directing us,” said
Townsend, “and we have come back to do it. Friend, we thank you.”

With which commendable demonstration of scout politeness he turned the
car around and rattled away again in the direction from which they had
just come.

“A scout is supposed to be polite,” said Townsend soberly.

“You forgot to turn the car around where we camped up on the hill,” said
Pee-wee in thunderous accusation. “You forgot to turn the car around and
you thought we were going down the other side of the hill instead of
back the same way we came from. You forget that we went up the hill
backwards. _Haaah, haaaah!_”

“Kiddo,” said Townsend, “a scout is supposed to be polite. Last night
when I lay awake listening to the rain, I happened to remember that I
never thanked—”

“You make me tired!” yelled Pee-wee.




                              CHAPTER XIV

                             UP IN THE AIR


After backing up the hill a second time, Townsend turned the car and
coasted down the long grade on the other side. The momentum took them to
a point where a railroad track crossed the road; indeed, the car would
have gone farther than that if caution had not required Townsend to stop
on hearing the whistle of a locomotive. Presently a train went whizzing
past.

The place at which they now were was apparently the site of a deserted
village, which in its flourishing day had boasted of a set of railroad
gates and a little tower house for a gateman and switchman. The four
gates were standing stark upright now and they did not so much as bow
when the train went by.

A ladder which had probably been the means of access to the tower house
lay below it, broken and rotted, one of its uprights entirely gone,
while three or four rungs stuck out from the other one like the few
remaining teeth of some aged crone. It looked more like a giant,
dilapidated rake than a ladder.

The tower house stood quite high upon a rotting trestle. Its roof was
almost entirely bereft of shingles. There was no sign of glass in either
of its windows which commanded views north and south along the track.
How long it may have been since any solitary watcher stayed in that
aerial shack, one could not guess. For a shack that held itself so high
it was very shabby. Through one of the windows the boys could see a tall
lever standing at an angle; whether it was a switch lever or the gate
lever they could not say. It was red with rust.

A few small houses clustered about the spot but they seemed all to be
forsaken and falling to pieces, save one. This one was surrounded by a
picturesque fence ingeniously devised of laths, old bed springs, chicken
wire, grocery boxes and barrel staves.

In front of the house was a very small and shabby porch and upon this
sat an Italian woman of enormous dimensions. It was impossible to
determine what she was sitting on for no part of this was visible, but
undoubtedly she was sitting on something, for she was in a sitting
posture.

The only other living thing on this romantic hamlet was a billy goat
within the enclosure, who, upon seeing the Ford stop close by the
tracks, dropped a rusty tin can which he had been chewing on, and
sauntered toward the edge of his domains surveying the visitors through
an old woven wire bed spring.

“You don’t suppose he wants to eat the flivver, do you?” Townsend asked.

“Bah—h—h—h,” said the billy goat.

“Quite well, thank you,” said Townsend. “How are _you_?” Then to Pee-wee
he said, “Let’s see how much gas we’ve got, I mean how little.”

They both climbed out and Townsend lifted the front seat cushion,
revealing a veritable feast of torn burlap and disordered straw at which
the goat seemed to cast a yearning eye.

“_Jumping Christopher_, we’ve only got about half a pint,” said
Townsend. “If we get across the tracks we’re lucky.”

“We should have kept on going,” said Pee-wee.

“In that case we would have knocked the train over,” said Townsend.
“Wait a minute, I’m going to ask the lady if we can get gas anywhere
around here.”

He strolled over to the table d’hôte fence and called to the hostess of
the establishment: “Gasoline? Can we get gasoline anywhere around here?”

“Idner,” the woman responded, shrugging her shoulders.

“I say is there a gas station near?”

“Gess (shrug) lotterdamile gess, Idner.”

“Very far—long way?”

“Gess yer Idner,” said the woman with another shrug.

“There must be a place or a man named Idner somewhere,” said Townsend.

“She means, _I don’t know_,” said Pee-wee.

“Baaah—h—h,” said the goat.

“How’s that?” said Townsend.

“I’ve got an inspiration,” shouted Pee-wee.

“Baaah—h—h,” said the goat.

“I don’t know which of you to believe,” said Townsend.

“Do you want me to tell you?” Pee-wee yelled.

“Oh, certainly, when you have time.”

“Didn’t that man back at that place say he was expecting the gasoline
wagon? I’m going to climb up into that switch tower and see if it’s
coming. I bet I can scan the landscape from up there.”

“You can what it?”

“Scan it; I bet I can see a—a vista.”

“We don’t want a vista, we want some gas.”

“You’re crazy,” said Pee-wee, “a vista is when you see a long way up a
narrow road, like. I can look both ways; back over the hill, too, I
bet.”

“I’m going to take one more chance with Mrs. Spaghetti,” said Townsend.
And raising his voice he asked again, simplifying the query, “Gas?
Makadergas. Way far?”

The woman shrugged her shoulders again, “Wayerderfer Idner,
makerderfergess Idner. Idner spiggedyamer.”

“Very well,” said Townsend, “if that’s the way you feel about it. It
looks as if we’ll have to stay neighbors; we might as well be friends.
Let’s push the car over to the side of the road, Kid. I don’t think much
of this for a camping spot.”

They sat in the car for a few minutes discussing the situation while the
goat looked on intently through the woven wire mattress. Abandoning,
apparently, all vain hopes of eating the Ford, he had picked up his
rusty tin can again, holding its crumpled rusty cover in his mouth while
his gaze still lingered on the strangers.

“Gee whiz,” said Pee-wee, “I’ll eat anything that comes out of a can but
I won’t eat a can.”

“Good for you,” said Townsend.

He seemed to think it pleasant enough sitting there and for a while
appeared to be altogether oblivious to their predicament.

“Shall I shin up the gate?” Pee-wee asked again, finally.

Townsend glanced idly at the gate. “Might be a good idea,” he said. “Do
you think you could do it?”

“_Sure_ I could do it. I’ll scan the horizon, hey?”

The crossing gates, as is usual, were in two pairs. They were of the
customary sort which are lowered to a horizontal position by cogwheels.
When not down they stood perfectly upright like four emaciated giant
fingers pointing skyward. One of these stood close to the old tower
house and was at present the only means (though a rather doubtful means)
of access to it. The open framework on which the little edifice stood
did not extend out to the edge of it on any side, so that climbing up
these supports would avail one nothing.

The upright gate, though slender and rather wabbly, was reinforced by
iron bars and would doubtless bear the weight of our mighty hero for at
least two-thirds of its length. He now proceeded to shinny up this gate
and as he ascended toward its thinner end it swayed slightly like the
stalk of a lily in the summer breeze.

“’Tisn’t going to break, is it?” Townsend called, watching the little
scout as he wriggled up. “It seems kind of unsteady.”

“_Sure_ it isn’t,” Pee-wee called.

“Watch your step,” called Townsend as Pee-wee ascended to a point level
with the window.

“_Oh, boy!_” shouted Pee-wee, elated and without waiting to transfer
himself to the little house. “I can see the road for miles and miles and
miles. There’s a village or something about a mile down that way.”

“Watch your step,” Townsend warned, as Pee-wee reached out one leg to
get a foothold on the old window ledge.




                               CHAPTER XV

                   DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION—AND WAR


Perhaps it was Pee-wee’s propensity for going up in the air on all sorts
of occasions that enabled him so dextrously to hand himself from the
slender, upright gate to the firmer support of the window ledge. Here he
sat for a few seconds dangling his feet and surveying the landscape in
every direction.

“Gee whiz, it’s dandy up here,” he called; “I can see way, way along the
track and way down the road, too; it’s a pamerana.”

“A which?” Townsend called.

“It’s the same as a bird’s-eye view.”

“Do you see the village of Idner?”

“I see some sort of a village or something,” Pee-wee answered; “I see a
church steeple and a kind of a building that maybe is a store; I bet we
can get ice cream cones there.” With which preliminary report he
disappeared into the tower house, presently reappearing at the window to
announce additional discoveries. “There’s a lot of stuff up here,” he
called; “there are handles to move switches with and everything. There’s
an old time-table—it says nineteen fourteen on it—tacked on the wall.

“There’s a kind of a shelf you sit at. There’s a stool here, too.
There’s a magazine, it’s—it’s—wait a minute—it’s seven years old—the
pages are all yellow—there’s a name of an article that says maybe there
might be a great war—there’s a big wasps’ nest up here, too.”

“Well, you’d better watch out or maybe there will be a great war,”
laughed Townsend.

“There’s a piece of bread up here, it’s petrified,” shouted Pee-wee;
“it’s all faded, kind of yellow. It’s dandy up here.”

“You don’t see anything of a gasoline wagon on the horizon, do you,
Sister Anne?” Townsend called.

“No, but there’s an old five-gallon tank,” Pee-wee shouted; “It’s on a
grocery box that says Lingate’s soap is best and it’s got some oil in
it. There are lanterns up here, too, a couple of red ones and a white
one and there’s a picture of an actress out of a newspaper tacked on the
wall. There’s a big spider-web, too, and there’s a wasp caught in it;
he’s dead.”

It was hard to divert Pee-wee’s inquisitive mind and eagle eyes from
their exploration of this new discovery. And indeed, even to Townsend’s
imagination, these homely, deserted memorials of a former time appealed
strongly. The little tower house was so much removed from the world as
to have some of the enchanting qualities of a desert island.

“I can hear oil splashing in it when I shake the can,” Pee-wee shouted.
“There’s an old red flag up here, too, and a picture of a prizefighter;
I guess it was on the wall but it fell on the floor; there was a
centipede under it, I stepped on him—a great big one.”

The prizefighter flat on the floor (where prizefighters so often find
themselves) and the actress on the wall hinted that the former towerman
had been a lover of the ring and of the stage.

“Take a squint up the road,” Townsend called, “How about it?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Pee-wee.

“Please do,” called Townsend.

“About a half a mile away, maybe three-quarters of a mile, is a village;
it’s right in the road. And about—wait a minute—about—about—halfway
between here and there—maybe not so much as quite half-way—_there’s some
chewing gum up here, too_, it’s hard like a rock—_there are mountains!_”

“Where is the chewing gum and where are the mountains?” Townsend called.

“Up here—there’s kind of something the matter like, along the road.
Throw me up my field-glass, it’s rolled up in my sleeping blanket with
my camera.”

“Here you go—catch,” called Townsend.

“Look out how you throw it,” Pee-wee shouted down.

“Look out how you catch it,” Townsend called.

The field-glass in its leather case went sailing accurately up through
the window but for some reason unexplained, Pee-wee did not catch it.
That is, he did not catch it in the sense of catching the field-glass.
But he did “catch it.” The entrance of the leather case through the
window was followed instantaneously by such a medley of noises
intermingled with frantic shouts that for a moment Townsend feared he
had set fire to the universe. Knowing Pee-wee’s propensity for packing
unsympathetic articles together, he called: “What was in the case?
Dynamite?”

The only response was such a chorus of sounds as might have issued from
Bedlam.

“_You knocked down the wasps’ nest!_” Pee-wee roared. “_They’re all
over!_”

It seemed to Townsend, as he stared, that there were a dozen Pee-wees in
the little tower house. Horrible thought—for surely one Pee-wee was
enough! Now a head could be momentarily seen in one window, now two
frantically waving arms in another, now a leg kicking, amid the fearful
sounds of combat. A few wasps sailed out into the open air, but most of
them stuck to their posts.

At last, amid the frantic tumult, the voice of our young hero could be
heard shouting, “_I’ve got an inspiration._” And this reassuring
announcement was shortly followed by the frantic waving of a flag of
fire amid which the legions of the enemy could be seen dispersing and
fleeing pell-mell.

“I poured kerosene on the signal flag and waved it,” Pee-wee shouted, as
the upper part of him appeared in the window all but enveloped in oil
smoke. He looked not unlike the pictures one sees of spirits. “I foiled
them!” he shouted.

“Did you get stung much?” Townsend called, laughing. He could not help
laughing.

“I triumphed over them,” Pee-wee shouted. “I got stung in three or four
places. Put some engine oil in a bottle and throw it up here, quick.
That’ll take out the information.”

“You didn’t set fire to anything, did you?” Townsend asked.

“I _foiled_ them!” Pee-wee shouted.




                              CHAPTER XVI

                               FIRST AID


“Watch now, and catch it,” Townsend called, as an ink bottle drained of
its former contents and filled with soothing cylinder oil sailed up
through the window. With this Pee-wee soothed the feverish little
mountains which had risen here and there on his face and hands, and his
knowledge of this makeshift medicine and his prompt application of it
saved him much suffering.

When his face appeared, presently, in the window it presented a rather
novel appearance. For enough ink had been left in the bottle to color
the oil and our hero looked not unlike a new kind of circus clown, or
perhaps a sort of human leopard.

“That shows you how scouts have to be resourceful,” Pee-wee called.

“All right, Kid,” laughed Townsend; “take a squint up the road with the
glass and let’s try to find out if there’s any sign of a gas station.”

“I’ll tell you just what there is?” Pee-wee said, studying the long
stretch of road with his field-glass. “Now I can see everything plain.
This is a dandy glass. About a half a mile up the road—that’s just this
side of the village—up there there are some cars parked and a lot of
people—”

“Smash-up?” Townsend asked.

“I can’t see any, but there are men kind of going from one car to
another. I guess it’s a hold-up, hey?”

“Wait a minute, I think I’ll come up there,” said Townsend. He had heard
so much and Pee-wee’s accounts were so impulsive that perhaps he thought
it wise to ascend himself. Perhaps he was a little curious to see the
interior of that little aerial abode, the scene of one of the greatest
battles in history.

At all events, he took off his coat, hung it on the woven wire spring
nearby and started to shinny up the gate. But the gate which had held
Scout Harris would not hold his larger companion. He had ascended
perhaps six or seven feet, when it started to go down with an
accompanying sound of squeaking gear wheels, disturbed after many years
of slumber and accumulating rust.

“Going down, ladies’ millinery next floor,” said Townsend.

He was precipitated to the ground, the gate lying in a horizontal
position above him, like a victorious wrestler, and blocking at least
half of the road.

“Foiled,” he said cheerily, as he arose, brushing off his clothing with
his hand.

“_Foiled?_” roared Pee-wee, in a voice of terrible accusation. “_I’m_
the one that’s foiled! How am I going to get down?”

At this, Townsend saw fit to lie down on his back again and roar.

“How am I going to get down?” Pee-wee demanded in a voice of thunder.

“Wait a minute till I stop laughing,” said Townsend. “The pl—pl—the plot
seems to be—be—growing thicker. I can’t laugh and think at the same
time.”

“Well then, think first,” called the motley hero; “I want to come down.
If it’s a smash-up up the road—”

“I don’t think it’s a smash-up, Kid,” laughed Townsend. “From what you
say I think it’s an inspectors’ drive.”

“What’s that?” Pee-wee called.

“Oh, every now and then the auto inspectors have a kind of intensive
campaign to round up people who drive without licenses,” said Townsend,
companionably. He was lying on his back on the ground, hands clasped
above his head as if nothing whatever had happened, and seemed disposed
to chat. Pee-wee, his face resplendent with gorgeous spots, looked down
on him scornfully. “You’ll get an inspiration, Kid, don’t worry,” said
Townsend.

Pee-wee took another look through the field-glass and seemed to be of
Townsend’s way of thinking. “What do you mean? What do they do?” he
asked.

“Oh, they hang out outside a town usually and stop everybody that comes
along,” said Townsend sociably, “and every one that hasn’t got his
license cards is invited to stay whether he wants to or not and when
they get a nice little batch of them they parade them into town and
they’re all fined and live happily forever after. Is it hot up there?”

“Have you ever been arrested for that?” the human leopard demanded.

“No, because I can always shuffle out my little driver’s license, but
they stop me about six times a minute when I’m away from Bridgeboro,
because I look so young and innocent. I’m under age and I’ve got a
special under-age license, that’s why. It’s because I’m so smart and am
such an expert driver. I always _foil_ them as you would say. It must be
getting on toward suppertime, I’m hungry. I think I’ll get supper.”

“If you think you’re so smart,” shouted Pee-wee, “tell me how I’m going
to get down out of here. Don’t you suppose _I_ want to eat supper, too?
_Gee whiz!_”

“Oh, I mean smart driving an automobile,” said Townsend.

“You make me sick,” shouted Pee-wee.

“How about the big handle up there?” Townsend asked.

“I pulled it,” said Pee-wee, “and it doesn’t work.”

“Exasperating,” said Townsend. “I think I’ll fry some of those
griddle-cakes; let’s see, you use flour—and—”

“Don’t you touch the eats as long as I’m up here,” Pee-wee thundered.
“Do you think I’m going to stand up here and see you eat?”

“You could look out of one of the other windows,” said Townsend. “I
appreciate how you feel.”

“I feel hungry!” roared Pee-wee.

Townsend arose, sauntered over to the car and dug among the luggage.
Returning to his former lolling place, he lay down on his back again and
began to eat a banana.

“You throw one of those up here,” Pee-wee shouted.

Townsend took another from his pocket and sitting up threw it so it fell
just short of the window.

“You did that on purpose,” roared Pee-wee.

“I’m so weak from hunger that I can’t throw,” said Townsend. “Wait till
I’ve had a little nourishment and I’ll try again. Let’s talk about the
relay race. No, let’s tell Ford stories. Why is a—”

“_You throw that banana up here, do you hear!_” Pee-wee fairly screamed,
glaring down like a frowning judge from his high rostrum, his face
decorated with vivid smudges, his scowl terrible to behold.

“Why is this Ford like a stew?” Townsend asked. “Do you give it up?”

“You give that banana up,” shouted Pee-wee. “No fooling—now! Here comes
an automobile along the road; now maybe you’ll get arrested for blocking
up the road with that big gate and it’ll serve you right.”

“Here you go,” laughed Townsend, throwing the banana so that it struck
the round countenance of our hero. “What kind of a car is it, a roadster
or a two seater?”

“It’s a roadster,” said Pee-wee, studying it with the glass. “I think
it’s a Buick.”

“Inspector’s car probably,” said Townsend languidly.

“You’d better get up,” Pee-wee said.

“You’d better get down,” said Townsend.

“How am I going to do it?” Pee-wee yelled.

“Don’t ask me,” said Townsend. “You’ve got a banana peel; can’t you slip
down on that?”

“You think you’re funny,” Pee-wee roared. “I’d like to know how I’m
going to get down out of here.”

“So would I,” said Townsend.

“Do you think I can stay here forever? Ask that woman if she’s got a
ladder?”

“Got a ladder?” Townsend called to the woman.

“Gottaderlad Idner (shrug) no spick,” said the woman.

“She says the ladder has gone back to Italy,” said Townsend. “Shall I
ask the goat?”

“You make me tired,” Pee-wee yelled.

“Have you seen anything of a ladder?” Townsend asked the goat.

“You’re crazy,” Pee-wee shouted.

“He says he ate the ladder for dessert last Sunday,” said Townsend. “How
near is the car?”

“It’s coming along fast and it’s a Buick roadster,” said Pee-wee.

In deference, perhaps, to the approaching vehicle, Townsend dragged
himself to his feet and, yawning, ambled over to where he had hung his
coat. It was not where he left it. But it was not far off.

It lay within the picturesque enclosure, one of its sleeves pulled out,
part of its lining in a state comparable to shredded wheat and one of
its pockets inside out. Nearby lay the tattered remnant of his leather
wallet. Out of the mouth of the billy goat dangled a railroad
time-table, partially consumed. He was not a discriminating goat for it
was an Erie time-table.

A hasty inspection of the carnage revealed the worst and bespoke a
massacre more horrible than the charge of the homeless wasps.

“What’s the matter?” Pee-wee called.

“The goat ate my wallet and eleven dollars and my driver’s license,”
called Townsend.

“G—o—o—d _night_!” shouted Pee-wee.




                              CHAPTER XVII

                                  GONE


Along the straight, even way sped the Buick roadster at about
thirty-five miles an hour, for automobile inspectors have a partiality
for violating the speed laws.

In the car were Inspector Snagg and Inspector Ketchum. They were, in
fact, returning to Newburgh after assisting in quite a haul at a likely
spot where highways intersected a little north of the scene of the last
recorded harrowing adventures. There, each passing motorist had been
held up for his driver’s license upon showing which he had been suffered
to go his way unmolested. The car came to a stop before the single gate
which blocked the right half of the road.

“What’s the matter here? Who put this gate down?” demanded Inspector
Snagg. “Whose car is that there?”

“It isn’t exactly a car,” said Townsend quietly, “but it’s mine.”

“You put that gate down? What’s that kid doing up there?”

“He seems to be standing there,” said Townsend.

“I climbed up to reconnoiter and the gate fell down,” Pee-wee shouted.

“The word _reconnoiter_ was too heavy for the gate, it fell down,” said
Townsend.

The two inspectors were very domineering and self-sufficient. The power
of asking questions peremptorily in rapid-fire fashion is quickly
learned by detectives and such. An impression of brisk efficiency is
thus produced.

Pee-wee and Townsend watched the inspectors push the gate up as far as
they could, which was at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and there
it stayed. There is no doubt at all that Townsend was apprehensive. As
for Pee-wee, he looked down like a true knight from his tower, severe,
fearless, frowning. The Italian woman made some concession to the tense
situation by craning her neck. The goat preserved a calm and innocent
demeanor.

“You kids want to look out how you play with crossing gates,” Inspector
Ketchum said; “you want to keep your hands off such things. You’d better
come down out of there,” he added, addressing Pee-wee.

“You’re so smart, let’s hear you tell me how?” shouted our young hero.

“What’s the matter with your face?” the inspector asked.

“I made ointment and put on it on account of getting stung by wasps,”
said Pee-wee. “I foiled a lot of them.”

“Who’s driving that car?” the other inspector demanded.

“Nobody’s driving it just now,” said Townsend. “I _was_ driving it.”

“Oh, you were, were you?”

“Yes, he was, was he,” shouted Pee-wee from his place of safety. “And he
can make it sing, too, and say good-bye and everything, and we’re going
to camp in it.”

“Is—_that_—so?” said Inspector Ketchum. “Youse kids is driving it, huh?”

“Only we’re out of gas,” Pee-wee shouted.

“You seem to have plenty of hot air,” said Inspector Snagg. “Which one
of youse is drivin’? Youse must think the public highways is a
slaughter-house.”

“I was driving,” said Townsend.

“Yere?” said Inspector Snagg sarcastically. “How old are you?”

“He’s seventeen and he’s a patrol leader,” Pee-wee volunteered.

“I’m seventeen,” said Townsend.

“Yere? Got a special, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes,” said Townsend, extremely apprehensive; for it was perfectly
apparent that the inspector was speaking in irony and did not believe
him.

“Let’s take a look,” said Inspector Snagg, holding out his hand in
ironical encouragement.

“I—I—eh—”

“Oh, you haven’t got it, huh?”

“What do you want to see it for?” Pee-wee shouted. “It looks just the
same as all the rest of them, they all look alike. It’s just like all
the rest of them you saw up the road. What’s the use of looking at it
when one’s just like another? Gee whiz, do you call that having sense?”

To this clever argument the inspectors made no reply. Probably they felt
that it was unanswerable. But Inspector Snagg continued to hold out his
hand to Townsend in an insolently patient and skeptical way. “Come on,
Kid,” he said.

“I just lost my license card,” said Townsend; “it was eaten by that
goat.”

“_Yere_, is _that so_?”

“Sure it’s so,” screamed Pee-wee, “that shows how much you know about
scouts if you think they lie, because I can prove he ate it because he
ate eleven dollars, too, and a time-table, you can ask that woman—so
now!”

The woman seemed to sense the situation for she emerged from her torpor
long enough to pour forth a torrent of gibberish which seemed to be
somewhat in the nature of self-defense and an elaborate exoneration of
the goat. It concluded with a glowing peroration, seemingly, to the
effect that Townsend had no right to hang his coat on her woven wire
spring.

“Tell her you’ll buy the goat and then you’ll have the license card,”
called Pee-wee.

“How can I buy the goat when the goat’s got all my money?” Townsend
asked.

“Give her your card and tell her you’ll pay her on the way back,”
shouted Pee-wee.

“The goat has my cards, too,” said Townsend.

“Well, yer ain’t got it then?” sneered Inspector Snagg.

“Sure he’s got it but it’s in the goat,” screamed Pee-wee.

“Well, you’re a couple of smart, fresh youngsters,” said Inspector
Snagg, sweeping aside all argument and explanation. “Now how much gas
have you got in that car?”

“Oh, a little bit,” said Townsend.

“Can’t you listen to an argument?” roared Pee-wee.

“Your pal can tell that to the judge,” called the inspector. “He can
tell him the goat story. Then if the judge says it’s all right fer kids
ter be racin’ along the public highways without—”

“You were coming along thirty-five miles an hour yourselves,” shouted
Pee-wee; “I’m not afraid of you!”

“You stay where you are, Kid,” said Townsend in a tone of kindness
mingled with disgust. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back or I’ll send somebody.
Take it easy.”

He cranked his flivver and it gave Pee-wee a feeling of isolation and
homesickness to hear the old engine chugging away and the car shaking
and quaking in every bone and joint like a victim of palsy.

“Ride on ahead,” said Inspector Snagg as he and his companion stepped
into the official car. “Some nerve, huh?” Pee-wee heard one of them say.

The flivver with its lone driver looked funny as it rattled along the
road with the trim roadster behind it. Pee-wee had never had this view
of it before. Being without a top or a back it had a queer look, unlike
other cars. It seemed like some hapless hoodlum being taken in for
throwing stones. Poor, friendly, faithful, dilapidated, ramshackle
little flivver! It made Pee-wee despise all Buicks to see that official
car, so smug and trim, following after.

The Ford, being topless and backless, Townsend’s form was conspicuous,
sitting upright on the front seat as the little cavalcade receded.
Pee-wee felt as if the Ford, like Keekie Joe of Barrel Alley, was a
member of his patrol. He realized now, as he had not realized before,
what a joyous institution was formed by Townsend and his flivver.

The twilight was again spreading its dusky coverlet over the country and
Pee-wee felt very strange and lonesome.




                             CHAPTER XVIII

                     PEE-WEE DOESN’T WATCH HIS STEP


The sun, which had not been out many hours on that memorable day,
withdrew behind the hills, the Italian woman withdrew within her
domicile, the billy goat withdrew to his private suite and was soon
wrapped in slumber. And night cast its shroud over the quiet
countryside.

Pee-wee felt strange and very lonesome. There he was, almost exactly
half-way between Bridgeboro and Temple Camp marooned in a railroad tower
house. To be sure, his situation was not desperate; occasionally an auto
passed along the road, the Italian woman (though apparently not deeply
interested in his adventures) was somewhere within call, and, in any
case, Townsend would either return or send some one. What Pee-wee could
not comprehend was that a perfectly innocent person could be subjected
to the indignity of arrest. Townsend had not been able to show his card,
therefore he had been taken away. The reason had nothing to do with it.
Pee-wee may have heard that the law is blind, but he had never known
that it is deaf, dumb and blind.

There was nothing to do now but wait, so he sat on the low shelf which
had evidently been a sort of desk, dangling his legs. At first he looked
at the pictures in the seven-year-old magazine, but somehow he could not
fix his mind on the pictures and he threw the torn, yellow-leaved
periodical from him.

Moreover, it was rapidly getting too dark to read. He was not exactly
nervous, but he was impatient and anxious. And this feeling increased as
the darkness came on apace.

Across the track were the few deserted houses which had constituted the
village or settlement. He could see them more clearly from the tower
house than he had been able to from the flivver when they had first
approached the spot. And now that he was not preoccupied with the
distant landscape, he noticed more particularly the scene near at hand.

Across the track, and somewhat back from the road was a large wooden
structure, too large for a place of residence. Pee-wee could just make
it out among the trees in the gathering darkness. The thought occurred
to him that this had once been a factory, the closing down of which,
might easily have depopulated the neighborhood. That would account for
the railroad gates at such an out-of-the-way spot. Perhaps, before the
war, or even during the war, streams of workers had flowed to and from
that big structure among the trees.

This supposition of Pee-wee’s was presently confirmed by a new
discovery. Glancing along the track to the east he saw that a branch
track curved around behind the supposed factory. This might have been a
branch of the railroad, but he thought it was more likely to be just a
siding for convenience in shipping goods from the factory.

In the fast approaching darkness he could see these tracks only as two
lines; he could not see the ties at all. The rails of the main line
shone like silver in the night, but the rails of the siding must have
been dull and rusty. From which Pee-wee supposed that they were not in
continuous use.

He craned his neck far out of the window to see how far he could follow
these branch tracks with his eyes. He could only see that the line
curved away behind the large building, the upper part of which was
visible among the trees. As he withdrew his gaze from up the track,
something small and bright red between the rails closer at hand caught
his eye. He might have noticed this more particularly if his mind had
not been full of another matter.

As has been said of Pee-wee, whenever he did a thing he went head first.
On this occasion he went back first, but with his usual headlong
impulsiveness. With the one remaining match which he had he intended to
examine the old time-table on the wall and try to determine whether or
not the branch track was indeed a branch of the railroad.

He had been sprawled across the low shelf, his neck far out of the
window and now as he withdrew into the little apartment he backed
against something which yielded to the pressure of his form. He realized
at once what he had done. One of the long switch levers which stuck up
from the floor at an angle toward him, had been pushed over so that it
slanted the other way.

Somewhere in the solemn, silent night and spent in the intervening area
of wood and mountain and valley, sounded the deep, melodious whistle of
a locomotive.




                              CHAPTER XIX

                               THE PANIC


Struggling to his feet, Pee-wee for a moment thought more of a bruised
back than of the tragic possibilities of his inadvertent act. His match
expired too soon to enable him to glean any information from the old,
faded time-table.

It was not till he stood in darkness that the appalling thought came to
him that a good deal more than a bruised back might be involved in his
stumble. If he had thought quicker he would never have lost the light
from that precious match for he knew that in almost every emergency
darkness is a terrible handicap.

For just a few seconds he stood, terrified, aghast, at the thought of
what he had done. No doubt at the point where that branch left the main
track there was a switch. Whether the track which branched off was just
a siding or not, made little difference, so far as this emergency was
concerned.

The switch had no doubt been set to eliminate the branch track
altogether, since the deserted neighborhood and the rusty rails
indicated that the branch, or whatever it was, was no longer used.
Suppose, then, that Pee-wee had opened the switch. A train coming from
the _west_ would enter the branch, if it were not traveling too fast. In
this latter case a catastrophe would occur at the spot.

If the train were traveling slowly it might make the unintended turn.
But if the curving track were only a siding there would be a smash-up
where the track ended. If the train were traveling from the _east_, it
would be in no danger for on such a junction the switch, however set,
would have no effect on trains running in that direction. A glance at
the accompanying rough sketch will show this.

[Illustration]

In all probability, as Pee-wee realized to his horror, the branch was
merely a siding formerly used by the factory, but in any case he knew
that a train coming from the _west_ would meet disaster a few yards east
of the tower house.

One consoling thought he had as he stood in the darkness, his breathing
quick and nervous, his mind in a state bordering on panic. He had only
to consider the peril awaiting trains from one direction, the west. Oh,
if he only had a light! In his terror and panic fear, if he only had a
light!

Pee-wee, whose wont it was freely to investigate everything, had always
held aloof from railroad apparatus and mechanism as things almost sacred
from the touch of amateurs. He had always had a kind of superstitious
awe of such things, levers, revolving lights and so forth, which are
seen in hiking near railroad tracks.

It is true that he went scout pace along railroad lines in the country
for the ties seemed to be just fitted to the stride of his small legs.
He occasionally used a rail as a tight rope, balancing an apple on his
head, a stunt which he had learned from Hervey Willetts, a blithesome
young daredevil at Temple Camp. But little metal pedestals along the way
he shunned.

And now he saw himself as the author of a horrible catastrophe. He tried
to recall and decide from which direction the distant whistle had
sounded, and to relieve his mind with the thought that perhaps it had
not been along this railroad at all. But he found little consolation in
these self-queries and thoughts.

Up to this time, Pee-wee was just a terror-stricken boy, horrified and
in awful suspense at what he had inadvertently done. And only a few
seconds had elapsed. Suddenly he found himself, as one might say, and
with a little nervous laugh at his own silly imagination, he grabbed the
tall lever to pull it back again. But it would not pull. His first panic
had been caused by the fact that he had moved it at all. He was now in a
very delirium of fear at not being able to pull it over. Whatever he had
done was irrevocable. And probably fatal.




                               CHAPTER XX

                               THE SCOUT


Distracted, frenzied, Pee-wee knelt in the darkness and felt about at
the base of the long lever. It seemed to enter a metal housing in the
floor. More than this, his hurried examination revealed nothing.

He tried again to pull the handle over but it would not budge. He had a
frightful feeling that everything he did made matters worse. He was
losing his morale.

Suddenly he thought of the other lever close by the one he had moved.
What was that for? The lever which had manipulated the gates was of
another pattern and away from these two. What was this other one for? If
he pushed it over would it undo what he had done? Were the two movements
of the switch controlled by the two levers? Maybe, for there was no
other switch. Yet there might be another somewhere.

Should he take a chance and push over this other lever?

Oh, if Townsend would only come. If _Townsend would only come_! He put
his small hand on the other lever and took it off again. He knelt again
to see if he could feel any cogwheels or anything through the grooves in
which the levers moved. Oh, if he only had a light and could see. If he
could _only see_!

He stood up, the perspiration standing in beads on his face, his throat
throbbing from the quick, agitated breaths, almost insane with the
feeling of utter powerlessness and of maddening suspense. It seemed as
if he had unhinged the universe. At every innocent sound of the night he
started. Oh, if Townsend would only—

Suddenly he stood stark still, struck with unspeakable fright, his hands
and face icy cold, as he heard again the distant whistle of a train.
Where was it? Far or near? The country was so vast and sound travels so
in the night and echoes and re-echoes among hills and valleys! Where was
it. Was it coming?

Trembling, he groped his way to the window closest to the tracks...

And then, _just then_, the panic-stricken boy disappeared, and in his
place there was Walter Harris, scout of the first class, First
Bridgeboro, New Jersey, Troop, B. S. A., looking out of the window at
something which lay between the shiny rails almost directly below him.
It was what he had seen before, a little red spot, only now it was
smaller.

He was too agitated to shout his customary announcement that he had an
inspiration, but that is what he had. He realized now, what he had not
taken the trouble to think about before, that this tiny, luminous patch
was a little pile of live coals dropped by the locomotive that had
passed just as the flivver had reached the tracks.

In the daylight he had not noticed it at all. In the dusk, when he had
seen it before, it had been larger but less luminous. Now, in the
surrounding blackness, it looked like a little red ball. Perhaps, of
that little pile, only one coal was still alive. And that would soon die
out. As Pee-wee looked down one edge of the red spot seemed to
straighten out as the fire left it. He thought that the tiny area of red
was narrowing. Even as he looked it had ceased to be round.

But whatever rapid process was going on down there, it was not as rapid
as the lightning process of Pee-wee’s mind now that it was aroused to
action. Here was Pee-wee the scout with a vengeance. He was always
thorough and self-sufficient. When he slept no one could awaken him.
When he ate no one could stop him. When he talked the world was silent.
And when he had an inspiration the solar system had to get from under.

He remembered that the long lever which manipulated the gates was split.
He recalled that very distinctly, because he had tried ineffectually to
raise the gates with it. It did not work. But he remembered that it was
bound around for the whole of its length with cord which had held the
split handle together. He cast another hurried glance out of the window
at that little diminishing spot of red. It seemed smaller than before,
hardly more than a speck now. He looked along the track for just a
second listening. Then he looked down again for a reassuring glimpse of
the tiny speck of fire.

It was gone.




                              CHAPTER XXI

                                SUSPENSE


No, it wasn’t, he had looked in the wrong place. He was so excited . . .
There it was still, a wee little red speck.

Hurry! Like lightning he groped his way to the gate lever, felt for the
place where the cord binding ended, and fixed his teeth there. His scout
knife had been arrested along with poor, faithful Liz, but he had his
teeth. And he knew how to use them—oh, trust him for that.

In a few seconds he had loosened a strand and chewed it in half. He
stood on tiptoe and pulled the end up, thus unwinding the cord
mechanically and saving a few precious seconds. It came away and hung
like a spiral spring. He pulled it through one hand straightening it to
its full length.

Then he groped for the old magazine, here, there . . . Where in
all . . . It was lying just before . . . Oh, where in . . .

He had it. Like lightning he poured kerosene on it from the old can,
then tied an end of cord around it. The old periodical was dry enough
for ready ignition, surely; its yellowed pages were fairly brittle.

All right. He hurried to the window. Now he could hear a far-distant
rattling—never mind. Where was the red spot? Gone! No—there it was,
hardly more than a spark . . . In ten more seconds . . . Suppose the
cord wasn’t long enough . . .

There was no time for any bull’s-eye practice here. In ten seconds,
fifteen at most, the tiny coal . . . No—yes—of course the cord was long
enough! “I’m—I’m—I’m always—lucky,” breathed Pee-wee. “I—I am—” He heard
the whistle of a locomotive now—_in the east_. Pretty far away yet . . .
But _hurry_!

If the stone throwers of Barrel Alley had been there that night they
would have seen something which ought to have raised the blush of shame
upon their dirty faces. They would have seen little Pee-wee Harris of
Terrace Avenue, Bridgeboro (where the rich sissies lived), throw a
magazine. They would have seen its drift and action so nicely calculated
that it alighted plunk upon a little burning ember obscuring it from
view. One shot, that was enough. The little master marksman leaned far
out of the window, dangling his cord, waiting.

Waiting . . .

                  *       *       *       *       *

There was no cover on that old magazine. But on the soaked and faded
page which did duty as a cover was the smiling countenance of Posy
Brazen, the famous movie star. That enchanting visage fell face down and
presently a radiant spot appeared upon her cheek which would have
delighted her. But suddenly it burst into flame and Posy Brazen went up
in a blaze of glory.

Quickly, like a dextrous angler, Pee-wee hauled up the magazine before
the spreading flame had touched the cord. He had ready in the other hand
an iron bar perhaps a yard in length which had leaned upright against
the window jam and had probably been used for propping up the departed
sash. He laid the burning magazine open over this bar holding it well
clear of the house. Then he allowed himself a breathing spell of just a
second.

This flaming torch would do well enough for a makeshift signal, only it
would not last long. Pee-wee had but one hand disengaged, but the
feeling of infinite relief which came over him enabled him to do calmly
what was still to be done. It was not an easy matter. With the light
which his projecting torch shed in the little enclosure he was able with
one hand to remove the oil receptacle from one of the red lanterns. It
was much rusted but he managed it and was glad to find that the dried
out wick was intact.

The hardest part was filling the little container, which he stood on the
floor under the faucet of the old oil tank, and replacing it in the
lantern. But these things were camparatively easy; anything was easy now
that he had his flaming signal flying, and his suspense was over.

Yet still this sturdy little hero had a vague feeling that he would be
blamed, condemned, and perhaps punished. He still felt that he was
trifling with things too important for his young hands—good little scout
that he was. He was doing his best, and a very glorious best it was, but
he had unhinged the universe and he was still fearful and apprehensive
of what would happen to _him_. From which you will see that he was not
one of those self-sufficient super boys that one reads about.

[Illustration: Pee-wee held the burning magazine well clear of the
house.]

The work of lighting the red lantern with his flaming torch was not easy
but it was not so difficult, though he burned his fingers. This done he
cast the magazine from the iron bar well clear of the little tower
house. Then he tied the red lantern to the end of the bar and tried to
devise a way of lodging the bar so that it would remain in its
horizontal position, projecting from the window. This, with all his
ingenuity, he could not do so he leaned out of the window holding the
rod with his tired, nimble, little hands.

“Anyway, gee whiz, that was a dandy inspiration,” he panted in a feeling
of exquisite relief. “It shows I got a lot of resources, you bet.”

He meant _resource_ but what’s the difference?




                              CHAPTER XXII

                 PEE-WEE LAYS DOWN THE LAW TO THE JUDGE


Down out of the mountains came the night express, thundering along,
fifty-seven minutes late. It awakened the echoes from the surrounding
hills and scattered the little creatures of the bordering woods like a
mighty, conquering autocrat. Indomitable, heedless it went its way.

Its weary passengers gazed listlessly out of the windows into the
darkness; some of them slept. It skirted Shelving Mountain, startling
that wooded giant with its call, and the answer came distant and faint
as if the mountain were almost asleep.

Along the straight, even stretch westward it picked up to sixty-three
miles and telegraphed its clamorous clanking and rattling along the
sensitive rails miles and miles ahead. Such an uproar in the quiet
night!

Suddenly Justice Dopett of the New Jersey Supreme Court got a bunk in
the head and he sat up rubbing his learned dome sympathetically with his
aged hand. The lady sitting just in front of him had likewise been
aroused out of her slumber by the sudden jolt as the cars shunted prior
to the quick stop.

“What’s the matter?” everyone asked, rather apprehensively.

No one seemed to know.

“Anything wrong?” two or three asked a brake-man who hurried through the
train.

“Guess not,” he grumbled.

There is something very disturbing about a train stopping suddenly. And
this is the more so because it is so difficult to get information from
the powers in control. They hurry back and forth in a mysterious manner
possible of the gravest interpretation and no one is the wiser.

On this occasion, however, the passengers in the first car were
fortunate in receiving their information directly from headquarters. It
seemed to be poured down on them from above in buckets full. It streamed
in through the open windows on the breeze. Nothing was withheld.

“I stopped the train because on account of not knowing if the switch was
open,” Pee-wee shouted. “I shinnied up the gate and it went down and it
wouldn’t come up again and I didn’t have any supper yet. I bumped
against the handle and moved it, that’s why I stopped the train and a
goat ate my chum’s driver’s license so he got arrested but anyway he’s
coming back. I heard the train whistling and, gee whiz, I hurried and I
didn’t have any supper yet.”

There was quite a little furore. The conductor seemed to think that
Pee-wee was much to be blamed; he spoke severely about small boys
meddling with railroad property, and so on and so on. The men passengers
took a different view. They agreed with Pee-wee and thought he was a
hero, which was just what he thought himself. The women passengers were
staggered at the idea of his not having had any supper.

Some of the people stood about on the ground while others gazed from car
platforms and windows while the hero (who was certainly the centre of
attraction) was assisted down from his aerial prison by means of a stout
rope which had been hastily brought out of the baggage car.

This Pee-wee fastened to the cross-beam in the tower house and dangling
it thence down and out through the window was able to make a truly
scoutish descent, locking each foot in a turn of the rope as he lowered
himself.

“Don’t hold on to it,” he shouted, “because the end of it has to be
loose, that’s the way you can come down from a house when it’s on fire.”

“Well, sir,” said a stern voice among the curious, flattering throng;
“so this is Doctor Harris’ boy, eh? Well, now, what are you doing here?”

Upon realizing the staggering fact that he was being addressed by
Justice Dopett of Grantly Square, Bridgeboro, Pee-wee nearly collapsed.
And naturally enough, for Justice Dopett was not only the friend and
neighbor of John Temple, founder of Temple Camp, but a scout councilman
as well and a very devoted friend and patron of the local organization.
He was Bridgeboro’s most distinguished citizen (with the exception of
Pee-wee himself) and he was known far and wide.

“Well, sir,” he said, surprised and amused. “What _are_ you doing
_here_? Such a small boy to stop such a big train.” At which the curious
throng laughed.

“I could stop a bigger one than that,” said Pee-wee. “If you have
resources you can stop them.” At which the throng laughed still more.

“Anyway, I’m glad I met you because you’re a judge,” Pee-wee
vociferated, “and you know all about those things, so is a feller—has he
got a right to drive a car if a goat eats his license? He can’t help it,
can he? Gee whiz, that’s not fair, is it? Townsend Ripley, you know him,
he got arrested from here because a goat across the road ate his license
and eleven dollars too, so he can’t even pay a fine. Gee whiz, that
isn’t fair, is it? Maybe they won’t let him come back even, so do you
call that fair?”

Justice Dopett, who had resolved many puzzling questions, seemed to
regard this one as a poser.

“I bet it’s a teckinality, hey?” said Pee-wee. “Yes, it’s a
technicality,” said the judge, amid much laughter. “I think the best
thing for you boys to do is to—”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Pee-wee vociferated, “and we’re not
going to go home no matter what, because we’re not quitters, because you
know all about scouts, you made a speech and said so, and we’re going to
drive to Temple Camp anyway, no matter what, because we started. No
siree, I don’t care about teckinalities or anything, we’re going to
drive to Temple Camp and I’m going to stay here till Townsend gets back
and if they keep him there, I’ll get a habis corpse because he couldn’t
help it if the goat ate his license, could he?”

“What was it, a Ford car?” an amused travelling man asked.

“He didn’t eat the car, he only ate the license,” said Pee-wee.

“Oh,” said the man.

“And I didn’t have any supper either,” said Pee-wee.




                             CHAPTER XXIII

                        WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS


What Justice Dopett might have tried to persuade Pee-wee to do if there
had been more time, one cannot predict. Apparently he did not relish the
idea of leaving the little hero from his home town alone at the spot.
But there was Townsend to be considered. The situation seemed unusual.

And moreover, though the law’s delays are well known, the engineer of an
express train is not usually in favor of dilatory tactics. At first the
justice seemed disposed to stop over himself but he revised this
friendly inclination and wrote a note “to whom it might concern” on an
official letter-head which he had in his wallet.

That note is still a treasured possession of the new Alligator Patrol.
Like the Declaration of Independence it is shown to the curious at the
Bridgeboro Scout Headquarters, and tenderfoot scouts contemplate it with
reverence and awe.

It stated that Townsend Ripley and Walter Harris were personally known
to the writer, that they were scouts, and that to the certain knowledge
of the writer the elder of the two boys had qualified and received a New
Jersey license to drive an automobile. It stated further that this
license card had been “unavoidably lost en route” (that was the phrase
Pee-wee liked best) and that another had not yet been issued.

The writer requested that his personal certification of Townsend
Ripley’s authority and competency to drive a car be accepted till the
hoys reached their destination. It was signed with the imposing official
signature of Justice Dopett, of the State Supreme Court and if it had
been the Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln, Pee-wee could not have
guarded it more fearfully.

During all this excitement a couple of trainmen had gone ahead and
examined the old switch. They found it set as it had been for seven
years past, securely fixed and powerless to beguile a train to
catastrophe. Its deadly fangs had been pulled; a little iron wedge
locked it securely and no amount of pulling could have changed it. The
lever against which Pee-wee had stumbled had long been disconnected.

But they did not bother to tell Pee-wee this; they were in too great a
hurry to get away. All they told him was that he had better keep away
from railroad property. So the owner of the sturdy little brown arm that
held the red lantern out and of the keen, anxious eyes that watched the
dying ember down below, never knew that his splendid exploit had been
quite superfluous.

He had stopped a train of eleven cars and two baggage cars (he counted
them as the train moved away) and he had done it because he “had
resources” and that was all he thought about. As he stood in the road, a
tiny figure in the vast darkness waiting for the train to move away, the
passengers waved cheerily to him and the funny travelling man called
down out of the smoking room of the Pullman for him not to worry about
the license disagreeing with the goat for it was only a license for a
small car.

“You bet your life he won’t get this,” called Pee-wee, clutching the
judge’s letter. “Gee whiz, you bet your life he won’t get this.”




                              CHAPTER XXIV

                            PEE-WEE FIXES IT


As the train moved past him, Pee-wee was conscious of a feeling of
loneliness; it was so bright and cheery inside the cars. Now that his
spirit was no longer supported by the emergency, and his suspense was
gone, the deserted houses and the woods oppressed him.

Moreover, now that he had time to think of other things, he was haunted
with misgivings about Townsend. Suppose they should hold him in jail.
That great oracle, Justice Dopett, had not said that they would _not_ do
so. Suppose they should.

Pee-wee wondered what he should do if Townsend did not return in an
hour—two hours. Neither of them had any money, Pee-wee realized that.
The goat had elected himself treasurer. Well, he would wait a little
while, maybe an hour, and then he would start walking to the nearest
town where he supposed his friend would be held as a hostage.

“Gee whiz, one thing anyway, I always treated animals good,” he
complained aloud.

He left the woods and the deserted houses to infer that the goat had
been a thankless creature. He was hungry now, too, and there seemed no
prospect of supper. He might search in the darkness for moss which he
knew to be a scout “resource” for baffling the demon of starvation. But
he did not feel like eating moss. He wanted some fried bacon. It seemed
as if fate had been very unkind to him. The billy goat had the driver’s
license and all the money and Liz had all the food . . .

The last car moved slowly by, a child sucking a stick of candy glanced
curiously out at the diminutive cause of all the trouble and then—

Then, directly across the tracks two bright lights stared at him in the
unobstructed highway; two lights looking cross-eyed.

“What’s the matter with that train? Has it got the sleeping sickness?”
Townsend asked. “What are _you_ doing down on the ground?”

“Townsend!” said Pee-wee.

“That’s me, help me lift the ladder off the car; what’s new?”

“A lot of adventures are new; I stumbled against the big handle that
moves the switch and—and—you know I told you there was a magazine up
there? Well, when I knew I must have—where did you put the bananas?—When
I knew I must have moved the switch on that side track up there where
there’s a factory that isn’t one any more that you didn’t see, I didn’t
have any matches—_listen_—I didn’t have any matches—”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to go home,” said Townsend, “so we won’t need
any matches.”

“What do you mean _go home_?” roared Pee-wee.

“Oh, they tell me I’d better not try running my car without a license. I
got off this time, I suppose, because I didn’t have any money and they
didn’t like to send me to jail; maybe the jail’s full or something. They
made me feel like a pickpocket; justice of the peace said he’d heard
fish stories before but never heard a goat story—”

“He thinks he’s smart,” Pee-wee shouted.

“I’ve heard lots of goat stories. He thinks he’s smart! I—”

“Well, I’ll tell you how it is, Kid,” said Townsend with an air of
resignation. “You see—”

“I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to go home,” shouted Pee-wee.
“If they send me to jail I’ll keep on eating so they can’t afford to
keep me.”

“I dare say that’s why they _didn’t_ keep me,” said Townsend; “because
there’s no money in it. But don’t you see, Kid, that with no license
card and with me looking so young they’re going to stop me and haul me
in at every plaguy town we pass through. If I looked old enough to have
a license, probably no one would stop me and I’d take a chance. But
we’re going to be stopped in Kingston, we’re going to be stopped in
Saugerties, we’re going to be stopped in Catskill, we’re going to have
no end of trouble. The hardest thing to make people believe is the
truth, sometimes—Kid,” Townsend added wistfully.

During the dismal rehearsal of their probable adventures, Pee-wee,
looking darkly significant, had restrained himself with difficulty.
Indeed it was only by the happy inspiration of using the banana as a gag
that he was able to control his voice at all. He now exploded like a
stick of dynamite.

“The truth is something or other and will—will what do you call it—I can
prove—”

“Yes, I’ve heard that,” said Townsend; “the truth is mighty and will
prevail. But goat stories don’t go.”

“_That—_”

“I know, Kid, but I got a good calling down in court. I was told I’d
better cut out the goat story and get back out of the state of New York
before I get locked up. I’m not going to tell a string of lies all the
way to camp, I’m not built that way. I’d rather be knocked down than be
talked to the way that little hay-seed justice of the peace—”

“If you’ll keep still a minute,” screamed Pee-wee, “I’ll tell you
something to knock you down, _so there_. _Read that letter!_ Then see
what you think—you’re so scared!”

Stooping in front of one of the cross-eyed headlights, Townsend read the
momentous document. “Where in goodness’ name did you get this?” he
asked.

“I got it on account of having resources,” Pee-wee shouted; “only you
won’t give me a chance to tell you.”

“Go ahead, Kid,” Townsend said, almost too astonished to speak.

In the greatest excitement, Pee-wee told of all that had happened during
his companion’s absence. He talked vociferously, continuously,—coming up
occasionally for air.

“So _now_ what do you say?” he concluded with an air of scathing
accusation.

“I say we find a good place to eat supper and then turn in for the
night, Kid,” said Townsend; “I’m tired out. Then we can make a fresh
start for Catskill in the morning. This has been a terrible day, we’ll
count it out.”

“_We will not_,” roared Pee-wee. “A day with a lot of dandy adventures
like this? Gee whiz, I’ll count to-morrow out if you want to, but not
to-day.”

“Well, there’s one good thing left about to-day,” said Townsend.

“What’s that?”

“Supper.”

“You said it,” said Pee-wee.




                              CHAPTER XXV

                           HE GOES TO CONQUER


They found a good camping place a little farther along, parked Lizzie at
the side of the road, and ate their late supper with a relish. (Fried
bacon, toast, marmalade, and rice cakes with _exasperated_ milk on them,
to use Pee-wee’s own word.)

Pee-wee said that he always liked supper after adventures, but that he
also liked it before adventures. There was only one thing about supper
that he did not like and that was that after he had eaten it he wasn’t
hungry any more.

Inspired by the hot meal and the spirit of their little camp-fire, he
enlarged on his adventure of the evening and listened to Townsend’s less
harrowing narrative of his own arraignment for “driving a motor vehicle
without a license” and so forth and so forth and so forth. He had been
dismissed with a reprimand and told not to be caught again in the State
of New York without his card.

“Don’t you care,” said Pee-wee, wrestling with a queer specimen of
culinary architecture which might have been a club sandwich struck by a
cyclone; “if they stop us now we won’t care, because we’ve got the
letter and anyway I’ve got an idea, I just thought of it. If you could
kind of be disguised as a grown-up person, sort of, with a regular coat
on or something like that, probably they wouldn’t stop us unless we ran
into another offensive drive—”

“Intensive,” said Townsend.

“So wouldn’t that be a good idea?”

“It would be a good idea, Kid, only I haven’t got any disguise. And we
haven’t got any gasoline either, if anybody should ask you. I doubt if
we can make the village I just came from; we’re up against it. It beats
anything how it holds out. I’d start out to-night again only I’m afraid
we’d get stuck in the road and I don’t want to get stuck in the road at
night. There’s a gas station in a barn about a mile up the road; there’s
a big boarding-house there, but I hate like the dickens to—”

“Scouts can’t ask favors,” Pee-wee shouted. They’re supposed to have
resources and—”

“Well, my resources are just a dime at present,” said Townsend.

“Listen,” shouted Pee-wee, “I’ve got an inspiration. It’s a dandy idea.
All we need is ten cents and a big boarding-house!”

“Do you make gasoline by mixing those together?” Townsend asked. “Take
one large boarding-house, stir thoroughly, and add ten—”

“_You’re crazy_—listen! There are lots of women at boarding-houses,
aren’t there? They’ve all got scissors and things to be sharpened. Last
year when I was at Snailsdale Manor Farm a man came around sharpening
knives and scissors and things, ten cents each. He made a lot of money.
Listen, Townsend, you stop laughing and listen—wait till I finish eating
this rice cake and I’ll tell you—you—you—maybe even we don’t need ten
cents. Have you got any emery cloth—for spark-plugs and things?”

“I guess I could scare up a couple of sheets.”

“Then all we have to do—_listen_—all we have to do is—have you got rims
that come off? Sure you have. All we have to do is jack up the back
wheels and take the tire and the rim off one of them and tack emery
cloth all the way round; it’ll last to sharpen about twenty pairs of
scissors and things. Gee whiz, it’s better to have resources than go
asking favors, isn’t it? We’ll make a great hit, _you see_! You be the
one to sharpen the things and I’ll be the one to shout, hey?”

The proposal to turn one of the rear wheels of his flivver into a
grindstone at first struck Townsend as preposterous but on reflecting he
saw no reason why this could not be done. Emery cloth, tacked on the
edge of a wheel would not last long, but it would last a little while,
and if business was good they could probably get some more emery cloth
at the village where the big boarding-house was. The element of comedy
which their outlandish device would have would in itself be something of
a drawing card. The world likes to see people (especially boys) original
and industrious. It always pays its tribute to ingenuity.

“It’ll be a kind of a show, too,” Pee-wee said.

And, indeed, so it proved. Pee-wee knew his public. He had enlivened the
tedium of summer boarding-houses before, but this proved his master
stroke. It was “just what they wanted,” to quote the advertisements.

Early in the morning they set forth, the gasoline so low in the tank
that Townsend, wriggle and jounce as he would, could not arouse an
answering splash from the depths below him. “There’s just about enough
to take a grease spot out with,” he said cheerily. In the promising
sunshine of Pee-wee’s presence he seemed to have regained his wonted
spirit.

“You leave them to me,” Pee-wee said; “you let me do the talking, see?”
Townsend agreed to this since there was no way of preventing it. “Right
after breakfast they always come out on the porch and sew and do things
like that; some of them take constitutions but most of them sew. That’s
the time to catch them.”

“Constitutionals, Kid.”

“What’s the difference?”

At the tactical hour of 9:30 A. M. a dilapidated, topless flivver might
have been seen and heard moving up the winding private road to Brookside
Villa. It made no attempt to steal upon the summer boarders unaware, but
rattled and squeaked, and proclaimed its coming to the world.

Townsend, hatless as usual and wearing his gray flannel shirt, sat
upright at the wheel with a humorous complacency which added a piquant
touch to his hobo vehicle. Pee-wee was resplendent in his full scout
regalia, merit badges and all.

Under the spell of his new enterprise, he had subjected his kit to
another upheaval in order to procure his best scout suit. Also he had
taken up one of the floor boards of the poor Ford and with a piece of
black chalk used for making scout signs, had printed on it in glaring
letters:

               Knives and things sharpened by machinery.

He had, on second thought (or, to be more exact, on fourth thought)
decided, for sufficient reasons, to omit the word scissors and include
it under the general heading of _things_. This sign he hung like a
banner on his scout staff and bore aloft like some doughty crusader of
old as he sat beside Townsend in the flivver.

But the people sitting on the lawn and porches of the big old-fashioned
house knew not what was going on in the heart of our redoubtable young
hero as they saw the festive caravan approach and, giving a spasmodic
medley of squeaks and rattles, stop before the main porch.

“Suppose we haven’t got gas enough to grind one scissors,” Pee-wee
whispered.

“It will only take four or five revolutions of the wheel to do that,”
said Townsend. “Half a pint of gas ought to earn us the price of four or
five gallons.”

“Leave them to me,” said Pee-wee darkly.




                              CHAPTER XXVI

                          BUSINESS IS PLEASURE


With an air of profound seriousness and businesslike briskness, Townsend
jacked up the rear of the flivver, removed the tire and rim, and
proceeded to tack strips of emery cloth continuously around the wooden
edge of the wheel. Two or three curious children watched him but most of
the boarders were too preoccupied watching and listening to Pee-wee to
note these preparations.

Our hero planted his flaunting banner between the car and the spacious
veranda and stood beneath it as if he were taking possession of the
whole place in the name of the Boy Scouts of America. His voice assailed
the porch and reached the neighboring lawn and penetrated to the rooms
which overlooked it. Here and there, blinds were thrown open revealing
the faces of astonished sojourners at the quiet resort.

[Illustration: Pee-wee planted his banner in front of the veranda.]

From one window an agitated old lady hurled a suitcase evidently under
the impression that the place was on fire. It landed on Pee-wee’s head
which only seemed to push his voice out more forcibly through his mouth.

“Scissors and knives sharpened, ten cents! Scissors and knives sharpened
by Townsend Ripley and his shivers slizzer—I mean scissors grinding
flivver! Have your knives and scissors and corn-cutters and everything
sharpened by the Boy Scouts! Don’t patronize professional flivver
sharpeners—I mean scissors sharpeners—they are profiteers. Here you are,
bring out anything that’s dull—”

“I’m having a perfectly _beastly dull_ time,” a girl interrupted him.
“Can you sharpen that?” Indeed he was already sharpening that, for the
guests were all laughing.

“Sure I can sharpen that!” Pee-wee shouted, “Bring it out! Only ten
cents!”

“I’m reading a pretty dull novel,” said a lady. “We can sharpen
everything,” Pee-wee shouted. “We don’t care what it is. After the
sharpening is over we give a special side show exhibition that sharpens
dull times and everything—don’t fail to wait and see Scout Ripley and
his talking Ford—it dances, it sings, it, it lays down—”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” laughed a man.

But no amount of laughing could drown Pee-wee out. “Have your knives and
scissors and pencils and everything sharpened by the Ford that got
arrested because a goat ate the auto license! See the letter
wrote—written—by Judge Dopett of the highest court that proves our
essentials—”

“Credentials,” whispered Townsend.

“I mean credentials,” shouted Pee-wee. “Be able to tell your great
grandparents—”

“Children,” whispered Townsend.

“Be able to tell your great grandchildren that you had your scissors
sharpened on the famous talking Ford that had its license eaten by a
goat! Here you are! Only ten cents. Three for a quarter.” He added as an
afterthought.

Dull times must indeed have prevailed at Brookside Villa, for not a
knife or scissors was withheld. The raised wheel at which Townsend
kneeled whizzed around, sharpening knife after knife and scissors after
scissors until there was not a particle of emery left in the emery cloth
nor a drop of gasoline in the tank. Still a little pile of familiar
domestic implements, which had partaken of the general dullness of the
place, lay on the running board of the car awaiting the touch of the
whizzing emery. And there was no dullness of any kind at Brookside Villa
any more.

Best of all, there was nearly three dollars in the little drinking cup
which stood on a stump near the flivver.

It would be hard to determine whether the boarders were better pleased
at having the dullness taken out of their knives and scissors or out of
their lives, for a while at least. Alas, neither form of dullness would
be long in abeyance. The emery treatment would not last long, the
entertainment was but the thing of an hour.

But if a laugh isn’t worth ten cents with a sharpened scissors thrown in
as a premium, why then a scout might as well beg and be done with it.
When you consider the overhead expenses, you can’t make people laugh and
sharpen scissors for less than ten cents—it can’t be done.




                             CHAPTER XXVII

                        TOWNSEND AND HIS FLIVVER


“I think boy scouts are wonderful,” said a lady boarder.

“Sure they are,” Pee-wee agreed. “They can’t take anything for a
service; they can’t take any money unless they earn it. They’re supposed
to almost starve and then think up a way not to, kind of. See?”

He sat on the edge of the porch waiting for Townsend to transform the
grindstone back into a wheel. “They have to depend on themselves,” he
added. “You can’t starve them because they can eat roots. Of course that
isn’t saying they won’t eat pie.”

“I understand,” said a man.

“They eat most everything,” Pee-wee said.

“Oh, how terrible,” said a girl.

“You don’t call that terrible, do you?” said Pee-wee. “They can imitate
any kind of an animal.”

“Can they imitate a calliope?” the girl asked.

“Is it an animal?” demanded Pee-wee.

“No, it’s a thing that makes a noise by steam; it’s about fifty noises
at once.”

“If I heard it I could imitate it,” Pee-wee said.

“I think you do imitate one very well,” laughed the girl.

Pee-wee took this as a compliment. “How many different noises can you
make?” he asked.

“I can only make one noise when you’re around,” said the girl, “and that
is to laugh.”

“That means you can imitate a hyena,” said Pee-wee, “because they laugh;
girls and hyenas are all the time laughing; they laugh for not any
reason.”

“Oh, thank you,” said the girl.

“Jackasses too,” said Pee-wee.

“Oh, thank you, _so much_.”

“Well,” said a lonely looking man whose penknife had undergone
treatment, “I wish you fellows were going to stay here. But if you have
to go, why my car is in the barn and I can drain a little gas out of it
to accommodate you. You could—you could buy it, you know,” he added.

He evidently had a pretty correct estimate of scout principles. But on
learning that there was a supply station only a few yards north of the
Brookside Villa grounds, our heroes decided to escort the car that far
by hand. Their departure was therefore even more impressive than their
arrival, Townsend pushing the car while Pee-wee steered it along the
private way and out into the high road.

With their tank replenished by a five gallon supply, they were ready for
the last stage of their momentous journey.

“We ought to make Kingston in an hour,” said Townsend. “What d’you say,
Liz? We ought to hit Saugerties about noontime—”

“You should never hit anybody under your size,” said Pee-wee;
“Saugerties is a small place.”

“Well, then _you_ can hit it,” said Townsend. “Then Kingston, then
Catskill; and we ought to be at camp by about two. That’s allowing for
two blow-outs, three short circuits, a puncture and fourteen hold-ups by
the upstate cops. I’ll throw in a leaky radiator just to be on the safe
side.”

“Of course if we should have any _unexpected_ troubles it would take us
longer. I’m just figuring on the regular every-day program.” Then, as
they rattled along, he sang one verse of a song which had nine million
verses, all of which he knew. He had a way of making the flivver
accompany him with certain noises and tooting the horn twice as a sort
of orchestral finale:

                “When the rear end starts a-bumping,
                And the engine starts a-thumping,
            And the top falls down and hits you in the neck;

                When the water starts a-hissing,
                And three cylinders are missing,
            Will you love me when my flivver is a wreck?”

“Gee whiz, I don’t see how the top can fall down and hit me,” said
Pee-wee. “Do you call that logic?”

“Once it had a fine top, Kid,” said Townsend. “A top that could fall
down—easily—every ten minutes. A real top. It can’t fall down any more,
Kid,” he added sadly. “It would if it could; you shouldn’t make fun of
it.”

“How can I make fun of it when it isn’t there?” Pee-wee shouted.

“That’s just it,” said Townsend; “you talk behind its back when it isn’t
here to fall down on you. Do you call that chivalrous?”

“You’re crazy,” said Pee-wee.

Townsend, sitting up straight in his funny, complacent way as if he were
driving a golden chariot, sang:

                “When the front wheels are a-wriggling,
                And the busted hood is jiggling,
            And the rusty springs they jounce you all about;

                When the squeaking never ceases,
                And the windshield is in pieces,
            Will you love me when my Lizzie’s down and out?”

“You bet your life I will,” said Pee-wee. “Gee whiz, after this whenever
I think of you, I’ll think of this Ford; you’re kind of like partners.”

“In adversity?” said Townsend. “And you won’t be ashamed of us when we
get to Temple Camp? I wonder what they’ll think of us there. I’m kind of
anxious to see the place, I’ve heard so much of it from you.”

“Gee whiz, I’ll always stick up for you and your flivver,” said Pee-wee.

Townsend stuck his feet up where the lower pane of the windshield had
once been and hummed as he caressed the steering-wheel fondly.

              “When both the brakes are braking,
              And the rattling doors are shaking,
          And you sit upon the bare springs in the seat;

              Will you love me like you uster,
              When she’s crowing like a rooster,
          And the oilcloth cushions look like shredded wheat?”




                             CHAPTER XXVIII

                  ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER—CONTINUED


Townsend would never sing any of these verses when Pee-wee wanted him
to. Pee-wee’s appetite for them soon became voracious. It was usually
when something went wrong (which was about every ten minutes) that
Townsend would edify his small companion with a new verse while making
some small repair or adjustment. At such trying moments his affection
for the car seemed to pass all bounds. His plaintive query would then
take wings and his loving soul burst into song, greatly to Pee-wee’s
amusement.

The flivver ran true to form to a point a mile or two south of Kingston,
keeping up a series of weird noises which Townsend called the _Orphans
of the Storm_ chorus, the uncanny sounds being caused by the flivver’s
recent exposure to the rain. He then predicted new squeaks which would
soon join in the chorus and they did.

They were stopped once by a rural official who was on a hay wagon, with
a vast load of hay as a pedestal for his dignity. Townsend, for the fun
of the thing, kept tooting his horn for the hay load to get out of the
way (a thing manifestly impossible), upon its failure to do which he
drove up close behind it to give Pee-wee a demonstration of how the Ford
could eat hay by drawing it in through the radiator openings.

The flivver’s mouth was about full of this luscious refreshment, the hay
streaming out of it, when the driver emerged over the mountainous load
and demanded to know, “Who told you you cud drive a car anyways, I’d
liketerknow.”

“No one had to tell us,” said Townsend; “we always knew it.”

Upon which, presto, a strand of green suspender was drawn aside, like a
boudoir curtain, revealing a coy and modest official badge on the
gingham shirt. Upon which, presto, out came Justice Dopett’s letter,
which drove the constable back into the fastness of his hay load again.
Townsend quietly got out and pulled the hay out of the radiator
openings, and that was the end of the incident.

It proved, however, but the suggestive prelude to a series of troubles.
Indeed, the nearer they approached to Kingston the farther away it
seemed. They had a puncture, then a blow-out, then a detour. And
scarcely had they regained the main road in the neighborhood of the New
Paltz and Highland Turnpike, when something happened which was beyond
Townsend’s ministrative powers; the Ford went wrong in a new and wholly
original place.

“That’s one thing I like about her,” he said, as he closed the hood
after a fruitless inspection. “When anything goes wrong that I can’t
fix, it always happens near a garage. This seems to be the fan belt.”

“Gee whiz, I should think you could fix that,” said Pee-wee, peering
down through the glassless windshield; “fan belts are simple.”

“They’re simple, Kid,” said Townsend; “and that’s where they’re
deceiving. You trust them and then they disappear. This one was as
simple as a little lamb, but it’s gone. I can’t fix a belt when it’s
gone. Do you want to trot back along the road and see if you see it
anywhere? If you find it tell it to come back—all is forgiven.”

Pee-wee went scout pace back along the road for a hundred yards or so
but there was no sign of the elusive fan belt. He picked up a dead snake
which had been run over and was so covered with dust that at first
glimpse he thought it might be the truant belt. He brought it back with
him on the supposition that it might possibly do.

“Couldn’t you use my scout belt either?” he asked.

“Your scout belt has important duties to perform, Kid. No, we’ll have to
go to the garage, much as I hate to do it. Now you begin to appreciate
this flivver. Where would you find another car—Cadillac, Pierce, I don’t
care what—that would break down almost in front of a garage? Look at
that garage not a hundred yards ahead of us! Some car, hey? Can you beat
her?”

Pee-wee could not see the logic of this, though indeed he had learned to
love Townsend’s Ford. It did seem to have a kind of mulish intelligence.

It must have been approaching noontime when Townsend, proudly
complacent, steered his hobo of a car majestically into the little
country garage which was but a few yards ahead of them, and tooted the
horn.

It may be added that the one thing about Townsend’s Ford which _always_
worked was the horn. Perhaps this was because it was not a Ford horn at
all. It was a Winton horn which he had adopted and it had a melodious,
commanding voice full of aristocratic richness. Gasoline boys, and
mechanics, storekeepers even, rushed pell-mell when they heard it as if
they expected to find the president of the United States waiting
without.

“What kind of a horn have you got connected with that car?” the
astonished proprietor of the little garage inquired as he made his
appearance from a yard in the rear.

“You mean what kind of a car have I got connected with this horn,” said
Townsend. “I’ve been using this car on this horn for a couple of years;
I suppose I’ll have to get a new car put on it soon. Have you got any
fan belts?”

“Your belt bust? Gosh, she’s steamin’ain’t she?”

“It left the party,” said Townsend.

“It’s a quitter,” said Pee-wee.

“Guess I can rig you up somethin’,” said the man. “Are you in any
hurry?”

“Tell him _no_,” Pee-wee whispered. He was by now so thoroughly in the
spirit of travelling that he began to dread reaching their destination.
He wanted to extend their journey, or the time of it, and be alone with
Townsend for another whole day. With all his ingenuity he had not
thought of any way of fixing this. But now the companionable flivver
seemed disposed to fix it for him.

From their last camping place they had averaged about three miles an
hour. It was altogether characteristic of Pee-wee that he had forgotten
all about his famous relay race and his unknown pal. Townsend was his
pal and he was having the time of his life and that was enough for him.




                              CHAPTER XXIX

                              “RESOURCES”


The garage man said he would put a new fan belt on as soon as he
finished work on another car. That, he said, would be about five
o’clock. The belt would cost seventy cents and the labor of adapting it
to the Ford would be fifty cents. They make you flat prices in the
country and do things cheap.

Out of the two dollars and sixty cents which the travellers had earned
they had spent a dollar and thirty-five cents for five gallons of gas.
This left them a dollar and twenty-five cents. The repair would cost
them one dollar and twenty cents which would leave them just exactly one
nickel. They would be in no predicament, however, since they had gas
enough to carry them to camp and food enough to carry them to the North
Pole. Their poverty was on the goat’s conscience, if he had any.

Before leaving the garage they selected a light lunch out of their
inexhaustible store, in procuring which Pee-wee strewed the floor and
seat of the car with packages and canned goods.

“Never mind them now, we’ll pick them up later,” he said, as he selected
a couple of bananas, a package with a few cookies in it, and several
cakes of chocolate. “We won’t bother to cook any lunch, hey, because
we’ll take a hike?”

“Yes, and cook when we get back.”

Thus hastily equipped with a “walking lunch” they sallied forth and,
after rambling about the neighboring village, decided to hike down to
the Hudson which their map showed to be about two miles distant.

“Let’s hire a boat and go for a row, hey?” said Pee-wee, munching his
lunch as he trudged along at Townsend’s side.

“What, with five cents?” laughed Townsend. “What’s the use hiring one?
Let’s buy one? We’ve got resources.”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” Pee-wee said. “Resources mean kind
of in your brain, sort of. Like if I was starving in the
woods—_hunters_, they can’t starve. They can eat herbs,—even bark off
trees, they can. Gee whiz, you’re a patrol leader and you don’t know
about those things. In the handbook it says how you don’t have to
starve—_ever_—because there was a famous guide and he got lost and all
his food was eaten by a—”

“A goat—”

“A bear.”

“His license and everything?”

“And he couldn’t find his way,” Pee-wee panted, eating a banana and
trying to keep up with Townsend, “and he saw the bear sneaking off and
then he knew which was the north, because mostly bears go south like in
the night when they’re after food and so he was sneaking north—”

“He must have swallowed the man’s compass,” said Townsend. “That’s why
he turned to the north.”

“And do you—_you’re crazy_—do you know what that man did? He ate
wintergreen and sassafras and so he didn’t starve. He dug up roots,
that’s what he did, and chewed them and some men that started for the
North Pole ate leather, even. So you can’t starve—scouts can’t. Because
nature is your slave, see?”

“What could be nicer?” said Townsend.

“And besides that,” said Pee-wee, working his mouth and legs to their
full capacity, “you can’t famish because, do you know why? The stars—the
big dipper—”

“Sure, I suppose you could drink out of that,” said Townsend.

“That shows how crazy you are!” roared Pee-wee. “You’re crazier than Roy
Blakeley and he’s crazier than a whole insane asylum. The stars guide
you, don’t you know that much? Do you know any stars?”

“Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin,” said Townsend thoughtfully; “let’s
see, Mary Pickford—”

To do justice to his towering contempt, Pee-wee hurriedly swallowed a
cookie he was eating and drew a long breath. “You’re a scout and head of
our patrol and you don’t know the stars. Did you ever hear of Orion?”

“O’Brien?”

“No, Orion.”

“Eugene O’Rion, sure; he plays—”

“_Orion, it’s a consolation!_” roared Pee-wee.

“Never met him,” said Townsend.

“Gee whiz, if you were my unknown pal up at Memorial Cabin, I’d teach
you some things this summer, I would. Suppose you got lost in the night
away, way far away from home or—or—Bennett’s Confectionery or any place.
What would you do? You’d sit down and get scared, I bet, and you’d get
more scared when you got hungry. All the while right around you there
might be lots and lots and lots of cones—pi—”

“Ice cream cones?” asked Townsend.

“_No_, pine cones, but you can eat the resin out of them. And besides,
do you know when you keep going around and around and around in a
circle?”

“When I’m on a merry-go-round?” ventured Townsend.

“No, when you’re lost. That’s why you always get back to the same place,
see? So the way to do is to stay where you are and don’t get scared and
send up a smoke signal only if the stars are out then you’re all right.
If you haven’t got any matches you just—”

“Strike a resource on the sole of your shoe and get a light that way,”
said Townsend. “Only it’s better to follow the consolations. Look, Kid,
there’s the river.”




                              CHAPTER XXX

                               A SURPRISE


The lordly Hudson looked inviting after their two days and a half on
land. It seemed to call and beckon the way-worn travellers to its
glinting expanse. Cars might go wrong, engines lie down, gates refuse to
work, but the quiet river hurried on, on, on, between its fair green
hills forever. Seeing it as they did then, it seemed removed from all
the commonplace and sordid troubles of the road. It was so quiet. The
few boats upon it made no noise. It had a solemn dignity that the
grandest high-road knows not.

“Looks nice, hey, Kid?”

“Sure, and I bet you’ll like Black Lake, too; it’s all kind of dark all
around it and you can see the stars in it.”

“I wish half of them were in it,” laughed Townsend. “Posy Brazen and—”

“They’re inserted in it,” said Pee-wee.

“You mean inverted in it,” Townsend said. “Well, we’ll be there
to-morrow if all goes well. As long as we can’t get Liz till five
o’clock we’ll camp to-night, what do you say?”

“I say yop,” said Pee-wee.

“Yop it is then,” said Townsend. “Say it with yops.”

“Maybe we’ll have another dandy delay too, hey?” said Pee-wee.

“Very likely,” said Townsend. “I wouldn’t care to knock Liz, though she
seems to be knocking herself.”

“Is it a—a—loose bearing?” Pee-wee asked hopefully.

“I can’t promise you that,” said Townsend; “but she’s knocking. I hope
it’ll be a five-cent repair, if any. Otherwise we’ll have to use a
couple of dozen resources.”

They found a little cottage down by the river, occupied by an old woman
who hobbled out with a cane to look at them. She was smoking a pipe and
looked very funny. She talked with such an Irish brogue that they could
hardly understand her but they made out from what she said that an old
punt which was drawn up on the shore belonged to no one in particular.

It had belonged to “Meemon” they gathered, and they supposed that Meemon
was her departed husband. She seemed perfectly willing that they should
use it and watched them with curious intentness as Townsend rowed out
with the pair of old broken oars which had been leaning against a tree
nearby. Then she hobbled into the house again, puffing furiously. It
seemed as if she were glad for the slight diversion.

They rowed all the way across the river, in sight of the great
Poughkeepsie bridge. At the Poughkeepsie wharf, a big Hudson River boat
was admitting passengers and the boys rowed about near it while the
passengers waved to them, and one man threw an apple which Pee-wee
caught. Girls, too, from the security of the mammoth decks, called to
the tiny craft below, and giggled and chatted with Townsend as he rested
on his oars. He might have looked rather attractive from up there; at
all events, the usual pleasantries were exchanged.

“Come on down.”

“No, you come up.”

“No, you come down.”

“No, you come up.”

“Catch this?”

Pee-wee missed a piece of candy.

“You can’t throw,” he shouted.

“You can’t catch,” called a girl. “Doesn’t he look little down there?”
she said to her companions.

Sound travels plainly over water and Pee-wee heard them. “It’s on
account of the distance,” he shouted.

“If we come down will you take us for a row?” (giggling).

“Positively,” said Townsend (more giggling).

And so on, and so on. They flopped lazily around on the river until
mid-afternoon, when Townsend realized to his surprise that the ebbing
tide had carried them far down-stream. It was aided and abetted now by a
freshening breeze against which it was almost hopeless to struggle.
Rowing against wind and tide is a thankless task.

Townsend could have made shore easily enough, but it is the scout way to
leave a thing where one finds it. He did the only thing he could do
striving against such odds, which was to keep close in shore where the
current was less strong, and pull the boat along by clutching the
overhanging foliage where there was any. It was slow work, but of such a
nature that Pee-wee could assist.

At last, by dint of rowing and pulling, they reached the spot where they
had embarked. The Irish woman was not in evidence but the smoke was
curling up out of the chimney of her little house, which reminded the
returning voyagers that it was getting on toward suppertime, unless
indeed, the smoke was from her trusty pipe.

“It’s six o’clock if anybody should ask you,” said Townsend, looking at
his watch.

“And we’ve got more than two miles to walk,” said Pee-wee.

“Well, the sooner we get about it, the sooner it’s done,” said Townsend.
“The water makes you hungry, doesn’t it?”

“You said it,” said Pee-wee. “The land makes you hungry, but not so much
as the water. Gee whiz, I got all sunburned.”

“Look at my arms,” said Townsend. “I’m good and tired, I know that.”

“I’m going to make rice cakes, you like those,” said Pee-wee. “We’ll
find a good place in the woods to camp, hey? And I’ll fry some bacon
too, hey?”

“Go as far as you like,” said Townsend; “I’ll eat anything. I could eat
a bale of hay.”

“We’ll make an omelet with some egg powder too,” said Pee-wee
encouraged. “We’ll have a banquet, hey? Because maybe this’ll be our
last supper alone together. _Maybe I’ll make hunter’s stew too!_” he
shouted in sudden inspiration.

“It will sure be our last supper together if you do that,” said
Townsend.

But he would probably have eaten even that weird specialty of Pee-wee’s
without complaint, so hungry was he. As for Pee-wee, he could have eaten
the Ford with a relish.

They trudged wearily back to the village and past it toward the little
garage beyond. The two miles seemed to have stretched out to an
appalling length like the neck of Alice in Wonderland. They were ready
to drop with each step they made. All their recent bodily exertion on
the river seemed to take effect in their weary limbs and they stumbled
along, dog-tired and silent.

“Don’t you care,” said Pee-wee; “we’ll start a fire and lie down and
have supper—gee whiz, I can eat lying down as well as sitting up, can’t
you?”

“I could eat standing on my head,” said Townsend.

“Not soup,” said Pee-wee.

“Well, rice cakes and bacon,” said Townsend.

“_Yum, yum, m, m, m, m, m!_” said Pee-wee.

As they approached the little garage it had a strange, uninviting look;
it looked different. There was not that suggestion of open hospitality
which it had shown when Lizzie rolled majestically in and awoke the dim
echoes of the interior with her rich, modulated voice. In plain fact the
garage was closed, its two big doors linked together by a huge,
cold-hearted padlock. And no sign of human life was there anywhere about
the place.




                              CHAPTER XXXI

                         TOWNSEND’S MIDDLE NAME


For a full half minute neither spoke and there was no sound but the
heartless clanking of the padlock as Townsend shook it. There was no
deception there—it was locked _tight_.

“Let’s walk around it,” said Townsend.

They reconnoitered about the little wooden building almost too
dumbfounded to speak. Townsend glanced in through a side window.

“Look in there,” he said.

“Is he in there—_dead_?” Pee-wee asked in his dramatic whisper.

“No, we’re out here dead,” said Townsend.

Pee-wee stood on tiptoe and beheld a frightful sight. There was Lizzie,
apparently repaired and ready for departure. Upon the rear seat reposed
a greasy bundle—_bacon_. Cans of beans and salmon and spaghetti lay
close by. The bag of rice nestled close to the bottle of molasses, as it
should have done, since they always joined forces to create the luscious
rice cake. The wire sticker with which Pee-wee stabbed his rice cakes to
the heart, now stuck up out of some cavern in the threadbare upholstery
and pointed at Pee-wee, as if in mockery.

“Dead?” moaned Townsend. “In another hour _I’ll_ be dead.”

“Do you see the raisins?” Pee-wee asked. “Over there in the corner? I
was going to mix them up in—”

“Have a heart, Kid.”

“I can see the end of a banana too. Do you see the toaster? What are we
going to do? It makes me hungrier, doesn’t it you?”

“Come away,” said Townsend; “don’t look.” But Pee-wee’s departing gaze
still lingered. “I see the egg powder,” he said; “right next to the
fruit crackers, do you see it?”

Townsend stopped his ears, withdrew and sat down on the grass. Famished
as he was, he could not repress a laugh.

“How about some sassafras and birch bark, Kid?” he said. “Scouts can’t
starve.”

“I can see the two ears of corn on the floor,” said Pee-wee, still
standing on tiptoe. “I was going to roast them.”

“How about some nice herbs? Browned in the pan?” Townsend asked.

“I wasn’t talking about scouts except when they’re lost,” said Pee-wee.
“That shows how much sense you have. _Are we in the North Woods?_ Answer
me that—are we in the North Woods? Scouts have to have resources, don’t
they?”

“Yes, but ours are all locked in there,” said Townsend.

“We have to find out where the man lives,” said Pee-wee; “he lives in
the village; I’m going to find him.”

“All right, I’ll leave everything to you, Kid, because you have charge
of the eats. If you don’t find him, anything you want to cook will be
all right—some nice boiled grass or fried roots—anything.”

Pee-wee gave one more wistful look into the garage, then departed in
search of its owner. He returned with the cheerful tidings that the man
lived seven miles away in Tiddyville and that he always closed up at six
o’clock. He had further ascertained that the man had no telephone.

“I suppose he thought we live somewhere around here and that we’ll call
to-morrow,” said Townsend. “Guess he thought we wouldn’t be back
to-night anyway. Well, we’ve got a dollar and a quarter on hand, and a
dollar twenty goes to our absent friend. That leaves a nickel—”

“There aren’t any stores anyway,” said Pee-wee, disgruntled.

“Well, then,” said Townsend, spinning the quarter into the air, “what
are we going to do? Beg at a farm? Or spend this man’s money buying
something of a farmer? Or are we going to be scouts? Not hot air scouts
but real, honest-to-goodness scouts. You said I wasn’t much on scouting;
said you’d teach me some things if I was only your unknown pal. Well,
how about it?” he asked, still spinning the quarter in the air. “Are we
going to stand here grouching and looking in that window like a couple
of hoodlums rubbering in a bakery shop window? Or are we going to be
scouts? What do you say? Shall we beat it into the woods and get supper?
How about you?”

“_I’ve got an inspiration!_” shouted Pee-wee. “We don’t have to eat
bark. I know real mushrooms when I see them and there are lots and lots
and lots and lots of them only you’ve got to know them!”

“Now you’re shouting,” said Townsend. “You were only talking a little
while ago.”

“When was I only talking?” Pee-wee demanded.

“On the way to the river.”

“I was shouting then,” he said.

“Well, then you’re screaming now. Did I ever tell you my middle name,
Kid? It’s mushrooms.”




                             CHAPTER XXXII

                           THREE’S A COMPANY


That was the night of the mushroom feast, gathered by a scout who knew
where to find them and how to distinguish them and how to cook them and
how to eat them—oh, very much so. And so you see that scouts need not
starve, though they seem to be always half starved at that.

The next morning Lizzie with her new belt rejoined them and they had no
further adventures till they reached camp, except that they were stopped
by the authorities in both Saugerties and Kingston. In both these
places, however, Pee-wee assisted by Justice Dopett managed to pilot
Townsend and his flivver clear of official rocks and reefs. In Catskill
they struck another official rock but they were out of the enemy’s
country then and in the hallowed neighborhood of the camp.

“Go ahead with you and get your card and don’t bring that pile of junk
down into the village again,” said the bluff village constable. “There’s
a dump between here and Leeds fer such trash.”

“Lizzie, did you hear what he said?” said Townsend.

“Squeeeeeak,” said Lizzie.

It now became increasingly evident that they were in territory which
Pee-wee had long since conquered and subdued, and as they approached,
and passed familiar landmarks he let his voice out in a series of
informatory screams.

“Oh, we’re getting there, we’re getting there, _we’re getting there_!”
he shouted. “There’s the barn that Hervey Willetts rolled off the top
of—hello, Mr. Berry!”

“Hello, yourself,” called farmer Berry from his field.

“Gee whiz, they all know me,” said Pee-wee proudly. “Lots of times we
walk to Catskill.” Going through the little village of Leeds it was like
a triumphal procession, Pee-wee waving his-hand and shouting to this
storekeeper and that, his excitement continually increasing.

“Oh, we’re getting there, we’re _getting there_!” he yelled. “You go
straight up this next road till you come to a smell kind of like a
stable only there isn’t any stable and then you keep going—I’ll show
you—oh, we’re coming nearer!”

They reached the smell and verged a little to the west. “Keep on this
road till you come to a turtle,” said Pee-wee excitedly. “Maybe he isn’t
there now but anyway—I’ll show you—you can’t drive right down to camp on
account of the woods—”

“Why can’t I?” Townsend asked.

“Because you can’t on account of the woods.”

“Let’s see the woods,” said Townsend.

“We’re coming to them, we’re coming to them,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll show
you.”

There had been many uproarious arrivals at Temple Camp but never such a
one as that. And Scout Harris nearly fell out of the car, he shouted so.
For Townsend paid not the slightest heed to the woods when he reached
it.

The way to reach Temple Camp is to go along the road till you reach an
old bench covered with carved initials. Here is where they wait for the
bus and the mail wagon. Right near that rustic bench is a beaten path
(Jeb’s Trail, they call it) which goes down through the sparse woods to
the lakeside where the camp is. No four-wheeled vehicle had ever dreamed
of going down there. Wheelbarrows had made the trip, but never a wagon,
much less an auto. These went on a few hundred feet and were parked at
the Archer farm.

“Don’t turn in there, don’t turn in there!” shouted Pee-wee. “It’s all
woods.”

“I thought we were going to camp,” said Townsend.

“You’ll bump into trees and everything,” warned Pee-wee, amazed at the
direction Townsend was taking, “and the last part is steep and you’ll
run right into the lake, that’s what you’ll do—Townsend.”

“Giddap, Liz,” said Townsend. “I’m not going to bust up the party.”

Before Pee-wee realized what his friend was doing the flivver had left
the road and was going licketysplit down through the woods, wriggling in
and out among the trees, squeaking, creaking, rattling, grinding,
moaning, bouncing, jouncing, halting, plunging, staggering, skidding,
with Townsend sitting on the seat in proud and unruffled complacency. He
looked as funny as a circus. Down it went, over the brook with a
terrific bounce, around the main pavilion, grazing the cooking shack and
uttering a prolonged squeak as Townsend jammed on the brakes to bring it
to a dead stop just in front of the springboard, where it seemed on the
point of taking a graceful loop-the-loop into the lake.

“Whoooa, Liz,” said Townsend, as scouts, yes, and scoutmasters, came
running from every direction. “Here we are at last, the three of us.”

Thus Temple Camp saw Townsend Ripley and his flivver for the first time.




                             CHAPTER XXXIII

                             THE SOLEMN VOW


In less than an hour after the arrival of the trio the whole camp was
singing, “_Will you love me when my flivver is a wreck?_” But Pee-wee
paused not to participate in the honors paid to Townsend and Liz. He
deserted the old love for the new and betook himself to Memorial Cabin.

He found the scene quiet and restful after his strenuous journey. The
birds sang in the trees which enclosed the rustic cabin, squirrels,
darted from limb to limb and hurried up and down the trunks, and the sun
sent his playful rays down through the leafy branches. No sign was there
of Pee-wee’s unknown guest.

Having inspected his lonely domicile he returned to the turmoil of the
camp proper and entered the sacred precincts of the cooking shack where
he announced his arrival in camp to Chocolate Drop, the cook.

“I’m here,” said Pee-wee; “I’m back again.”

“I sees you is,” said Chocolate Drop, smiling all over. “You dun gwan to
lib on de hill?” he asked.

“I want eats and things for two scouts for three weeks,” Pee-wee
announced. “I’m going to do all the cooking and everything like on a—a
frontiers. Maybe I won’t be seen down here in camp at all even.”

This news, which might have been received with approbation by Ray
Blakeley and others, was regarded with consternation by Chocolate Drop.
However, he graciously supplied Pee-wee with commissary stores in
accordance with our hero’s request and for several days Pee-wee was so
busy with enthusiastic preparations for the reception of his unknown
guest that he was not seen in the main body of the camp. In the
seclusion of his retreat and the pre-occupation of hospitable
preparations he lived in sublime ignorance of the volcanic eruption
which was presently to engulf him.

For in planning his famous relay race Pee-wee had neglected to take into
consideration an important element of the scout nature. Relay races are
all right when there is nothing too seductive at the ends of them. In
the case of a relay race ending at a delightful summer camp the danger
of it becoming cumulative is very great.

Having completed his preparations for the reception of his unknown
guest, Pee-wee was seated one evening on the doorstep of Memorial Cabin
communing with nature and eating a luscious tomato. The rays of dying
sunlight painted the hills across the lake a vivid crimson and the
truant streams from his luscious refreshment painted his scout suit an
equally vivid hue. It seemed almost as if the sun were actually setting
in his face in a very riot of colorful glory. Intuition, bolstered by a
series of elaborate deductions, had convinced the lonely tenant of the
cabin that the time of fulfillment was at hand, that his solitary guest
would shortly appear. So strong was this conviction upon Pee-wee that he
had, by the exercise of tremendous will power, refrained from partaking
of his lonely, self-cooked meal, in consideration of the imminent
arrival of his mysterious companion. “I’m going to wait till eleven
o’clock,” he said, referring to his hospitable period of fasting,
“because anyway he ought to be here to-night, that’s the way I figure
it.”

Pee-wee was always quite himself when playing a part, and so far as he
was concerned, there was no living soul in all the country roundabout—no
one but his solitary companion, the last runner to receive his much
handled credential, hastening silently, like some stealthy Indian
emissary, toward his sequestered retreat. Cheerful voices could be heard
down at camp, but Pee-wee heeded them not. The inviting dinner horn
sounded and re-echoed from the hill’s across the darkening lake and for
a moment it tempted him with its suggestions of waffles and honey. But
he put these thoughts out of his mind with the redoubled resolution
that, he, the lonely host of Memorial Cabin, the hospitable hermit and
all that sort of thing, would not mingle with his kind, but remain in
magnificent and romantic isolation in his lair. He had boasted, indeed,
with such flaunting boasts as only he could utter, that neither he nor
his unknown friend would partake of a single meal in camp during the
visitor’s stay but would live like pioneers “on hunters’ stew that we
make ourselves and things like that.”

“I bet the two of you will be down for dinner the second day,” Roy
Blakeley had predicted.

“That shows how much you know about primitive life,” our hero had
thundered.

“It shows how much I know about your hunters’ stew,” Roy had said. “I
bet the two of you will be down for dinner after one grub on the hill.”

“If the stranger is able to walk,” Warde Hollister had said.

“Oh that’s understood,” Roy had agreed.

Our hero had contemplated these scoffers with characteristic scorn.
“That shows,” he had begun, then coming up for air proceeded in tones of
thunder, “that shows that you’re all parlor scouts—”

“What do you call yourself—a kitchen scout?” Roy had laughed.

“It shows how much you know about resolution and, and, and—solemn
vows—and pioneer life and surmounting obstacles by your own initials, I
mean initiatives and things like that, I bet you—I bet you—we don’t come
down to one single meal while he’s here. I bet you we don’t even come
down to find out what time it is, I bet you we don’t. I bet we tell time
by the sun. Even salt, I haven’t got any but I know how to get it from
rocks. I’m not going to even ask for it. Even matches we’re not going to
ask for. I bet we don’t come near Temple Camp” (he called it Temple Camp
as if by that formal designation to put it far away) “for _anything_.
Absolutely, positively—and definitely—we won’t come down for eats or
anything. So you needn’t expect to see us.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Roy had said.




                             CHAPTER XXXIV

                         END OF THE RELAY RACE


As the sun slowly sank behind the hills Pee-wee finished his tomato and
even as the deeper twilight erased the crimson glow from the wooded
hilltops, he wiped the vivid red from his round face and smacked his
lips and sent his tongue on a sort of clean-up tour about the exterior
of his mouth.

Then he crept out under a neighboring pine tree, and gathering a few
stray twigs, proceeded to amplify the little pyramid of kindling which
he had built under a tempting looking black pot which stood on two
miniature walls of brick.

He lifted the tin cover from this pot and gazed fondly, proudly, within
at his handiwork, a hunters’ stew, ready for boiling. With a rough
wooden spoon he stirred it revealing tempting bits of carrot, pearly
shavings of onion, and substantial pieces of meat. There was stew enough
there for two, on a two helping basis, and it would keep till the morrow
in case his elaborate calculations of the movements of the relay racers
proved inaccurate. He replaced the cover on the pot, gave a look of
defiance down at camp, and resumed his seat upon the doorstep.

There is something very captivating in making calculations and then
waiting for their nice fulfillment. In starting his famous relay race
from Westwood, New Jersey, Pee-wee had included Spring Valley,
Haverstraw, Fort Montgomery, Newburgh, Plattekill, New Paltz, Kingston,
Saugerties, and Catskill, as the relay points. All of these places were
large enough to have scouts and he had Alton Beech’s assurance that
there would be no difficulty in passing the letter to some willing
messenger in each of the towns named. Each messenger would be able to do
his allotted errand and return to his home without a long absence.

Allowing for lunches, sodas, ice creams, parental objections with
attendant pleas, etc., Pee-wee had determined that some time between
seven o’clock and midnight on that very night the final messenger should
arrive. He was waiting for him with a welcome—the best kind of a
welcome, a hunters’ stew.

And having thus regaled him he intended to instruct him in the stern
requirements of pioneer life. He intended to inform him of his romantic
vow to shun the tame conveniences and facilities of camp and to depend
on their own resources. He would show him how these things were done. He
would surprise him with that interesting item of scoutcraft that they
could live without current and continuous aid from the civilized world.
During the last day or two Temple Camp had degenerated into something
hardly better than a crowded city, and Pee-wee scorned it.

The most authentic account of this singular climax to Pee-wee’s
adventures that summer is that he was dozing on the doorstep of the
cabin at about eleven P. M. having heroically refrained from eating up
to that hour. At least that was the testimony of Alton Beech his
Westwood acquaintance.

Upon being awakened by the sound of merry voices our hero, rubbing his
eyes, was aware of two distinct groups of scouts standing in the
moonlight. It is said that the moon was laughing, but perhaps that is an
exaggeration. In the foreground stood Alton Beech, and there is no doubt
at all that _he_ was laughing. To Pee-wee’s drowsy eyes this joyous
apparition seemed to be surrounded by a throng of strange scouts,
containing not one familiar face. In the background the whole of Temple
Camp seemed to be crowding in mirthful expectation.

“Wh—what—are—who—you—what are _you_ doing here?” Pee-wee stammered,
addressing the first messenger of the now momentous enterprise.
“W—a—a—you doing here—Beech—are you Beech?”

“Here we are,” said Alton Beech cheerily, as Pee-wee, approaching a
state of full wakefulness sat and stared. “You see the trouble was that
your letter—well it was too good. The relay race instead of going in
relays, it just piled up, no one would turn back, so here we all
are—except two. Fort Montgomery and Haverstraw are missing. It was the
cabin and the two helpings of dessert that did it. Don’t blame us, you
wrote the letter. I flunked in Spring Valley and ’phoned home that I was
going the limit. Spring Valley went as far as Newburgh with me and
refused to go home. New Paltz said he was going straight through. Don’t
blame me, it was your letter. You started a pile-up race, not a relay
race, Scout Harris. So here we are and _gee-williger_ but we’re hungry.
Have you got supper ready?”

“Oh absolutely, positively,” said Roy Blakeley stepping forward, “just
let’s see that letter a minute will you?”

Roy took the famous document from Alton Beech and in the light of his
flashlight read aloud the words which had brought this catastrophe down
upon our hero’s head:

    To Walter Harris if they don’t know who you mean ask for
    Pee-wee Temple Camp Leeds Ulster County N. Y. This letter is
    brought by relays and each scout that gets it takes it to
    another scout only he has to be sure to go north toward
    Temple Camp everybody up that way knows where that is and
    knows me two. Whoever brings it to me and delivers it into
    my hand stays at Temple Camp for the rest of the summer and
    his meals free absolootly positivly and they always give to
    helpings sometimes and bunks in Mamoriel Cabin with me
    _posativiy sure_.

    P.S.—This is true. and I mean it.

                                       Walter Harris,
                                               Alligator Patrol.

“That’s absolutely good,” Roy said. “It says whoever brings it. It
doesn’t say _one_ must bring it, it doesn’t say how many. You’re all
welcome to Memorial Cabin. Greetings and salutations. A scout never
turns back. Have you got supper ready, kid?”

“You’re crazy!” Pee-wee shouted. “Do you think I can cook for eight
scouts? Do you—”

“Resources, resources,” said Warde Hollister.

“A scout can do anything,” said Westy Martin.

“He never breaks his vow,” said Doc Carson.

“He doesn’t depend on civilization,” said Dorry Benton.

“Oh positively not,” said Roy; “he depends on his own initials. Just
make yourselves at home and he’ll have supper ready in a couple of
jiffies. You fellows came to the right place, you can all have
forty-eleven helpings of resources. He knows that a scout never turns
back. Some night after supper drop down to camp and see us.”

“Come down and watch us eat,” said another Temple Camper.

“I’m afraid they can’t do that,” laughed another; “they’re supposed to
be leading the primitive life up here.”

“Do you think we’re going to starve?” Pee-wee thundered. “Do you think
because a scout that plans a thing and then says what he’d do if that
thing happens like he planned only it doesn’t—do you suppose they have
to starve on account of a lot of lunatics like you, especially Roy
Blakeley? That shows how much you know about logic! Do you say that
eight is the same as two?”

It shall never be written that Temple Camp was lacking in hospitality,
and there was no intention of allowing Pee-wee to attempt the
entertainment of this human avalanche. Nor, indeed, had the avalanche
any intention of imposing on our hero, for each member of the invading
host had come supplied with funds. For a pick-up troop they were a
pretty fine lot of fellows. It was Tom Slade, the young assistant, who
stepped into the breach in this most critical and apparently portentous
moment in the life of P. Harris.

“Look here, kid,” he said. “You’ve got to take this whole crowd or none
at all. This is the net results of your relay race. Take it or leave it.
You forgot that a scout never turns back; in scouting relay races are a
myth. They just _ain’t_. A scout that starts always wants to see the
finish. All that stuff in the scout handbook is nonsense. No scout ever
handed a letter about eats and things to another scout and then went
home—_never_. You’re all off on scouting, kid.

“Now look here, kid, this is Alton Beech’s crowd and you’re not going to
break up the party. We’ve got a vacant cabin for these fellows and
they’re going to bunk in it and eat down in camp. See? So you just start
your little fire and forget about this bunch and your unknown chum will
come along pretty soon, I’ll take care of that.”

“What do you mean?” Pee-wee demanded.

“You’ll see,” said Tom. “Start your fire and get ready. I’ve got the
right idea on this unknown pal business better than you have. You’re way
off the track, kid. You start your little fire and leave the rest to me.
Come on, Beech, come on the rest of you fellows, you must be hungry.”

It was not long after this that our lonely hero, somewhat squelched by
recent happenings, heard an outlandish but strangely familiar noise and
soon was aware of two lights poking their way up through the woods. Ah,
that beloved, familiar, medley! That fond chorus of squeaks and rattles
and unmuffled chugging. Those beams of light bisecting each other from
Lizzie’s cross-eyed headlights. Up the hill she came, in and out among
the trees, and over obstacles of fallen trunks, puffing, clanking,
rattling, buzzing, pausing, swerving, but triumphing over every
challenging obstruction. Lizzie!

“That you, kid?” called Townsend cheerily.

“Look out for the woodpile,” Pee-wee said, his heart dancing with
surprise and joy.

“Let the woodpile worry,” said Townsend. “Got supper ready?”

“It’s—it’s just beginning to steam,” said Pee-wee; “look out you don’t
run over it. It’s going to be dandy, Townsend, it’s all nice and thick,
with lots of carrots; I made it, Townsend.”

“Whooaa, Liz,” said Townsend as the beloved companion of their long
journey came to a full stop and appeared to shake itself like a dog
emerging from the water. “Say ‘I’m hungry,’ Liz.” The Ford emitted three
uncanny syllables which sounded not unlike those plaintive words. “That
Slade fellow seems to be the big boss around here, doesn’t he?” said
Townsend stepping down. “Well, here I am, or here _we_ are, I should
say. It seems you can’t lose me, kid. First I was going to walk up and
then I said, no, Liz belongs in this outfit. Can you accommodate the two
of us, kid? Slade bet me I couldn’t make it. Why it’s like the Lincoln
Highway, kid. Did you hear Liz laughing?”

For almost the first time in the history of his loquacious career
Pee-wee Harris could not speak. Liz was looking at him with one bent up
cross eye and in its light Townsend Ripley, his unknown guest indeed,
saw that the eyes of his travelling companion were glistening.

“Can’t lose us, kid,” said Townsend.

But Pee-wee said nothing, and in the glare of that funny headlight all
askew Townsend could see that the eyes of his young friend glistened
more and more.

That is the funny part of it, that Pee-wee Harris did not speak.