“WE’VE GOT AS MUCH RIGHT HERE AS THIS RIVER HAS, AND WANT TO GET ACROSS.”
Pee-wee whispered to me very anxious-like, “You better look out how you talk to him, he’s a detective. He can arrest us if he wants to.”
Westy said, “Why should we be afraid? We haven’t taken anything.”
I said, “I’m not so sure about that. We’re taking a hike. Maybe if we can’t prove it belongs to us——”
“You’re crazy,” the kid said.
“I know a fellow who got arrested for stealing third base when he was on the High School team,” Hunt said.
I said, “Hey, Mr. Pinchem, can we get arrested for taking a hike that doesn’t belong to us?”
He just laughed because he knows we’re all crazy. He said, “Well, what’s on your mind now? You want to be arrested, huh?”
“We didn’t say that,” the kid spoke up.
Mr. Pinchem just stepped out of the boat and gave him a shove and said, “You’ve been stealing somebody’s phonograph, huh? I’ll have to look into that.”
I said, “Good night, go ahead and look into it. All you’ll see is a lot of junk.”
Mr. Pinchem and that other man just stood there laughing and he said, “Well, what’s on your minds? You want to get across, do you?”
I said, “We want to get across in a bee-line. Do you see that tree just across the river? The one near the shore. That’s in a bee-line with that big tree away up there on west ridge. So if you’d be willing to take the end of this rope across and fasten it to that tree, then maybe you can row us over without drifting with the tide. We have to go in a bee-line.”
He said, “Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, now, suppose that bee-line takes you right through the County Jail. What then?”
Pee-wee looked kind of frightened.
“That’s up to the County Jail,” I said. “If the County Jail doesn’t get out of the way, we go through it. Didn’t you ever hear that boy scouts areinvincible?”
Pee-wee said, “They’re not—exactly—they’re not always so very invincible. See? They have to be courteous. If you asked us not to go through the jail, we wouldn’t. See?”
Westy said, “We’ve even been through public school, we’re so smart.”
Mr. Pinchem said, “I’d say you’ve been through an ice house, you’re so fresh. Well, I’ll see what we can do for you. I hope you’ll always keep as straight as you’re going now.”
I said, “We always go straight; we don’t go around much. We’re always wide awake except when we’re asleep.”
He said, “Well, you’re so wide awake, you didn’t happen to see anything of a man around here? A man with a cap and a brown sweater?”
“He may be a colored man,” the other man said.
“What color?” Pee-wee said, all excited.
“Why, black, maybe,” Mr. Pinchem said; “or maybe not. A pretty rough looking customer. Didn’t happen to notice any one around here, huh?”
“Is he a murderer?” Pee-wee asked.
“Well, I guess he’d be willing to be,” Mr. Pinchem said. “He stole a skiff from the boat club in Northvale and it was found empty down below here in the marshes.”
“Do you want me to help you find him?” the kid piped up.
Mr. Pinchem’s friend said, “He held up an auto on the state road above Northvale last night. He fired two shots; got away with some jewelry and about seven hundred dollars. The chauffeur thought he was black but he wasn’t sure; didn’t see his face.”
“He—eh—I hope you catch him,” our young hero said.
He didn’t seem to be quite as anxious to do the catching as he had been about a minute before.
Table of Contents
BANDITS AND THINGS
I said, “Grab hold of this rope, Detective Harris, if you want to get across the river.”
So that’s the way we got across, going straight west, even while the tide was running out good and strong. Mr. Pinchem rowed over with one end of the rope, and the tide carried him about fifty yards downstream before he made the other shore. Then he got out and dragged the boat back upstream and tied the rope to the tree just where we told him to.
We had to make two trips across, but it was easy keeping our course because all we had to do was to keep hold of the rope and work the boat along with our hands.
I guess those men didn’t think we could be much help to them; anyway they didn’t hire Pee-wee to foil the bandit the way men do in stories. I’d liketo see that kid capturing a bandit. Judging by the way he treats ice cream cones there wouldn’t be much left of the bandit. I’m not crazy about bandits, anyway, but some fellows are. Anyway, I’d like a blue one better than a black one because that’s my patrol color.
But, anyway, this is the way those men thought it was. Northvale is about three or four miles above Bridgeboro. It’s right on the river and there’s a boat club up there. So when they found that boat in the marshes down near Bridgeboro I guess they thought that fellow had left the boat and maybe was hiding somewhere around there. Because, anyway, it would be pretty hard for him to get through the marshes to the railroad track, that’s sure.
Now after those men left us they started rowing back up the river and they didn’t get along very fast on account of the tide being against them. Gee whiz, I’d kind of like to be a detective if I was a man, but I wouldn’t want to be a truant officer.
So now our bee-line hike was about half over and we had traveled in a pretty straight line. I’m not saying that we didn’t go even a yard to theright or left, because, gee, that would be impossible, but I bet we went in a pretty straight line. We didn’t vary our course any just to save trouble, that’s sure.
Now from the river there is open country till you get to Little Valley. The only thing that stands in the way is Riverview Park. That used to be an amusement park. They closed it up during the war because they needed the horses on the merry-go-round for ambulances in France; that’s what Harry Donnelle said. He lives in Little Valley.
Anyway, they never opened that park again. Gee whiz, I didn’t care much because we’re always up at Temple Camp in the summer. All you could do there was spend money. You can have more fun for nothing.
So the only trouble we would have between the river and Little Valley was the board fence around that old park, and you don’t call a board fence an obstacle, I hope.
Our young hero couldn’t get that bandit out of his mind. He said, “I bet he’s a pretty desperate robber, hey? To fire two shots.”
“Sure,” Westy said, “if he had only fired one it wouldn’t have been so bad. And to get away with seven hundred dollars, too.”
“If it had been only three or four hundred dollars I wouldn’t say anything,” I said. “But seven hundred is too much.”
“It’s grand larceny,” the kid said.
“I don’t call it so very grand,” I told him. “If you think it’s grand to steal seven hundred dollars, you’ve got some funny ideas. I suppose if a man stole about ten thousand dollars you’d call that magnificent larceny.”
“You’re crazy,” Pee-wee shouted. “Grand larceny is a kind of a crime.”
I said, “Well, I’m a scout, and I don’t call larceny grand.”
“It’s a crime,” Pee-wee shouted, “and he can get a long sentence for it.”
“He ought to get a whole paragraph for a crime like that,” I told him.
“Do you think maybe we’ll run into him?” the kid wanted to know.
“Not if we see him first,” I said. “I guess a man who is guilty of wayhigh robbery wouldn’t hang around here.”
“Sometimes scouts catch fugitives,” Pee-wee said.
“More often they catch the dickens,” Hunt said. “Come on, forget it.”
“Sure,” I said; “keep in a bee-line and you’ll always go straight.”
Table of Contents
THE HAUNTED WHEEL
I guess maybe it’s a half a mile across that old amusement park. All the land there is low; we could see right over the top of Little Valley as you might say, and the big tree away off there on the ridge stood out good and plain. Maybe that was partly because the sun was getting over that way. Anyway, I know that about a couple of hours later the tree looked as if it were all kind of spangled with gold like a Christmas tree. It seemed sort of as if the sun was going ahead to get the tree all decorated for us.
Westy said, “The sun’s beginning to get over to the west. See?”
I said, “It’s going to beat us to the tree, too.”
So you can see from what I told you that it was easy to follow a straight course right through that old park. Sometimes we had to clamberover piles of old boards and we had to work our way kind of in and out through the old rotten trestle of the scenic railway. That thing crossed our path like a big, long, wriggling snake. Some of the old booths were boarded up and some of them were all falling to pieces. The concrete basin that used to be a swimming pool was all full of rubbish. And the little platform away way up, that the man used to do the dive of death from, was all falling to pieces. Some places we had to climb over the old ramshackle booths, but that was easy.
All of a sudden Westy stopped short and said, “Look ahead; do you know what?”
“What?” I asked him.
“See that old ferris-wheel?” he said. “We’re going to run plunk right into it.”
I took a good squint and sure enough it was right in a bee-line with our beacon. It wasn’t across our path but it was lengthways with our path. It was so narrow that we might have gone past on either side of it, but just the same it was right plunk in our path. It was quite a long ways ahead.
Once, when Westy and I were going throughthat old park on our way home from Little Valley we got a good scare on account of that old ferris-wheel. And that’s what started people thinking it was haunted. Maybe you’ve heard of haunted houses but I bet you never heard of a haunted ferris-wheel.
That time we went throughthere—oh, I guess it was a couple of years ago. Anyway, it was in the night and everything was as dark as licorice bars. Maybe you never ate those, but they’re mighty good, they’re black. All of a sudden we heard a kind of a creaking noise and we couldn’t make out where it was. Sometimes it sounded just as if it might be a person.
We followed that noise the best we could and pretty soon we came to the old wheel. It isn’t so big, that wheel. And it isn’t so little either. Then we could hear the sound good and plain and it was up in the wheel. It sounded pretty spooky. Sometimes it was a noise like some one crying. And then it would kind of die away.
When we got home we told about it and Mr. Ellsworth (he’s our scoutmaster) said it was probably just the wind blowing in that creaky old thing. But after that, all the kids in Bridgeborosaid the wheel was haunted. If you say a place is haunted, it’s haunted.
But one thing, it kept the kids away from the old park. Because, anyway, they weren’t supposed to go there. Gee whiz, I can’t say whether I’m afraid of a ghost or not because I never saw one, but I know that white is their patrol color. Anyway, if I were a ghost I wouldn’t hang out in a ferris-wheel, I know that. I guess they’re half crazy, anyway, because there used to be one in the old tumbled-down schoolhouse in North Bridgeboro. Jiminy, I should think he could have found a better place than that to stay in. But my father says it’s pretty hard to find places to live in these days. We should worry, the woods for us.
Table of Contents
A SCOUT IS OBSERVANT
Westy said, “I wonder how our old friend the ghost is?”
I said, “If we meet him we’ll take him along with us. He ought to be good on a bee-line hike because he can go right through anything.”
I said, “If it wasn’t for Warde Hollister I’d take him into my patrol. I’ve got every kind of a freak in there now except a ghost.”
“You haven’t got me,” Pee-wee shouted.
I said, “No, that’s one kind of a freak I haven’t got.”
“If you could have a ghost and a bandit in this patrol we’d be complete,” Westy said.
“I’m bad enough,” Warde Hollister said.
I said, “Sure, we’re satisfied if you are. Take us for better or worse; you’ll probably find us a good deal worse.”
Warde said, “It’s been good fun so far.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” I told him. “Wait till you get up to Temple Camp. Even the laughing brook is all the time giggling at us. Wait till you see the raving Ravens.”
“That’s all right,” Pee-wee piped up. “Up there people in the village always smile atus—grown-up people.”
“It’s a wonder they don’t laugh out loud,” I said.
All of a sudden, as we were going along, Pee-wee grabbed me by the shoulder and whispered, “Look!”
“Have a heart,” I told him; “don’t knock me down. What is it?”
“Look!” he whispered. “Look! Where that board is broken.”
Then I knew what he meant. About twenty feet off our path was a kind of an old tumbled-down shack. It was boarded up in front with old odds and ends of boards that were not painted. There was quite a big piece gone from one of the boards, and as I looked through that I could see a face.
“Shh, do you see it?” I whispered to Westy.Then I kind of urged the fellows along the path because I didn’t want us to be standing right there in front of that hole.
“What—what did I tell you?” Pee-wee whispered, all excited.
“You didn’t tell me anything,” I said. “Shh, don’t talk so loud. Come on, let’s walk along a little further. Do you want him to see us?”
“Did you see?” Pee-wee whispered, so excited he could hardly speak. “It was a black man. It’s the bandit. I discovered him.”
“What are we going to do about it?” I asked the other fellows. “There’s somebody in there.”
“Sure there is,” two or three of them said.
Will Dawson said, “I saw him plain; he was standing in back of a box. He was a colored man, all right.”
“I was the first to discover him,” Pee-wee whispered.
I said, “All right, findings is keepings; you can have him, he’s yours. Now are you satisfied?”
By that time we were about ten yards past the shack, standing all in a group. The person inside couldn’t see us through the opening in front of the shack but for all we knew he might bepeeking at us through some little crack or hole. It made me feel funny to think that he was in there staring at us and we not able to see him.
I said, “Come on, let’s walk along just as if we didn’t suspect anything; we can talk while we’re walking.”
So we started along and Dorry said, “The best thing is for one of us to run ahead to Little Valley and tell the police there.”
“You’ll find the police department standing in front of the post office,” I said. “That’s where he usually hangs out.”
I guess the only one of us that hadn’t spoken at all was Warde Hollister. All of a sudden he said, “What’s the good of notifying the police? Scouts aren’t afraid, are they? Harris is the one who discovered him. So he ought to be the one to go back and capture him.”
“That shows how much you know about scouts,” Pee-wee said. “Scouts are supposed to be cautious. If you’re reckless, then you’re not a good scout. See? Maybe I’d like to go back and capture that bandit, but I have to make a sacrifice and not do it. See?”
I said, “Sure, it’s as clear as mud. Let’s sit down here just as if we were going to take a rest; let’s sprawl on the ground just as if we weren’t thinking about that shack at all. Then we can talk about what we’d better do.”
“Maybe the ground is better a little further along,” the kid said.
“This is all right,” Westy said.
So we sat down right in our path and Will Dawson and Dorry Benton started playing mumbly-peg, so that if the man in the shack saw us he wouldn’t be suspicious. Because if he thought we had seen him and were going to tell, he’d probably start running away.
“Don’t look back,” Westy said. “What are we going to do? We can’t capture him ourselves, can we?”
“The only way would be to sprinkle a little salt on him,” Warde Hollister said.
It seemed sort of funny the way that fellow talked because all of us had seen that black face in the shack and a bandit is no joke, especially a negro bandit, but any color is bad enough. Anyway, I was glad to see that Warde was getting crazy like the rest of us. But I didn’t know till another minute how crazy he really was.
Table of Contents
SUSPENSE
I said, “All right, but it’s pretty serious. There’s that black man in there. If we start toward Little Valley or back toward Bridgeboro he’ll be suspicious and escape. We know where he is and maybe he doesn’t know we know. How are we going to notify Mr. Pinchem or anybody else, that’s the question?”
Westy said, “Maybe one of us could sneak away and hurry to Little Valley.”
“Yes, and maybe he’ll sneak away too,” I said.
“Maybe we could start a fire and send up a smudge signal,” said Dorry.
“Sure, and make it good and black because he’s a negro,” Warde said.
I said, “It’s all very well to joke, but we have that man as good as caught. What are we going to do about it?”
“Some one hustle to Little Valley,” Westy said.
“A smudge signal,” said Dorry and Will.
Warde Hollister said, “Well, of course I don’t know so much about scouts because I’m not really a member yet.”
“They’re supposed to be observant,” the kid said.
“And brave,” Warde said.
“Sure, but they have to be cautious,” the kid said.
“They’re supposed to use sense,” I put in.
Warde said, “Well, I’m not afraid of what’s in there. Maybe I’m not so observant, but that fellow in there can’t scareme. If Pee-wee doesn’t want to go and nab him, I’ll go and nab him myself.”
Just then he got up and started for the shack.
“Come back!” I said. “You’re crazy!”
Pee-wee grabbed him by his jacket and said, all excited, “Do you want to get killed? Do you want to get killed?Sit down! Do you want to get killed? Don’t you know that man fired two shots?”
Westy said, “Come back, you fool!”
Hunt jumped up and grabbed him and he andPee-wee both tried to hold him back. “Sit down, sit down!” they said. “Do you want to get shot?”
Warde just shook them off, and he said, “This kid came up to my house yesterday and gave me a lot of stuff about scouts being courageous and brave and intrepid——”
“Let me tell you what intrepid means,” the kid said, half crazy.“It—it—it—has—it has twomeanings—kind of.”
“A scout is supposed to risk his life and get the Gold Cross,” Warde said. “That’s just what you told me.”
Gee whiz, before we realized it he was half way over to the shack.
“We’d better run,” the kid said.
“Stay where you are,” Westy told him.
I said, “That fellow has been reading crazy adventure stories, about kids capturing highwaymen and all that.”
“That’s what he gets from lying in the hammock and readingDeadeye Dick,” Will said.
“What—what shall we do?” the kid asked.
By that time Warde Hollister was right close up to the shack. Gee whiz, I had to admit he was reckless. He just walked right up and caughthold of that loose board and gave it a yank. We just waited, cold. Every second we were expecting to hear a shot and then see that big ugly black man come dashing out.
“No wonder,” Westy said; “his brain is full of boy scouts who murder and allthat—that isn’t—listen!”
It was just the sound of Warde pulling down that old rotten board and crawling through. We were all in such suspense that we could hardly speak. The kid was nearly dead with fright.
“Listen—shh!” Westy said.
“It’s a scuffle,” I said.
Then, all of a sudden,oh,boy, I can hear it now, there was a loud, sudden report like a pistol shot.
We just stood there trembling. None of us moved or spoke.
Table of Contents
THE HERO
When Will Dawson spoke his voice was hoarse. “Let’sgo—we’ve got to go and look in,” he said.
Westy just gulped. He said, “Wait asecond—listen.”
“It’s awful,” Ralph Warner said.“We—we can’t just stand here. What shall we do?”
Pee-wee was as white as snow. He just stood there gulping.
“We’ll—we’llhave—to—tellhis—his mother,” one of the fellows said.
Just then,good night, you’ll hardly believe it when I tell you. Out came one of those old boards just as if some one was kicking it, and there was Warde Hollister dragging out the poor limp black man by the neck. The man’s arms were flopping about this way and that and Wardethrew him down flat on the ground. Then he made his hands into two cups and slapped them together.
JUST THEN, OUT CAME ONE OF THOSE OLD BOARDS AND THERE STOOD THE BLACK MAN.
“Just one more shot to finish him,” he said. It sounded just exactly like a pistol.
“There he is,” Warde said; “and he’ll never frighten good little boy scouts again. Nobody will ever get another prize for hitting him in the eye with a baseball. His glorious career as a target is over. Step up, lads, and take a look at him.”
Oh, boy, I guess we never felt so silly in our lives. Poor bandit, he was just one of those figures that sit in a chair and are pelted with baseballs, three shots for a dime. “Every time you hit the nigger!” That’s what the man used to call. When some one hit him a good hard crack he’d topple off the seat and then the man would give you a kewpie doll or maybe an ash-tray. The poor old wooden “nigger” had been packed away and all we had seen was his black face sticking up above some old boxes.
I said to Warde, laughing good and hard, “You knew it all the time, didn’t you?”
He just said, “A scout is observant. Do I get the Gold Cross?”
Westy said, “I don’t think you get the Gold Cross, but we ought to get leather medals, I know that. We’re a fine outfit of scouts not to know an old ‘hit-the-nigger’ target from a bandit.”
Warde just kicked the poor old black man. I guess the black man didn’t care, because he was used to being pelted in the face. I wouldn’t want that job.
Then Warde said, “Scout Harris is to blame for this horrible murder. Did you ever hear of mental suggestion?” Gee, that fellow’s smart.
“Is that what you killed him with?” I said.
He said, “If you’re hunting for a thing, everything looks like that thing. Harris had bandits on his brain, so one look at this thing was enough for you fellows.”
“If you’re lookingfor—for—a piece of pie,” Pee-wee piped up, “will everything be pie?”
“Posilutely,” I said. “Just the same as when you’re in Hamburg everything looks like ham. It’s the same only different. Just the same as all the buildings in Paris are made of plaster of paris. Just the same as the raving Ravens are afraid of wooden dummies. What’s the answer?”
“Answer to what?” he shouted.
“Anything,” I said. “It depends on what the question is. Warde Hollister is a better scout than any of us. Deny it if you dare, quoth I. He has performed the most heroic act since Artie Van Arlen, patrol leader of the Ravens, killed a couple of hours waiting for a train for Temple Camp. They don’t care what they kill, those scouts.”
We put the baseball target back where he belonged and I guess he’s dead yet for all I know. He faced a good many bee-lines, that’s one sure thing. Anyway, we should bother about him because we had our own bee-line hike to finish, only the worst was yet to come.
Table of Contents
ONE, TWO, THREE, GO!
After that, for as much as about ten yards, we didn’t have any more adventures. Then we had to climb over the band-stand, but that wasn’t much of an adventure.
The next thing we passed was a lot of cookies I had in my pocket. I passed them around. After that we came to the place where Daredevil Dennell used to go up in a balloon and just beyond there is the ferris-wheel.
Now it was about half past three or so, or maybe four o’clock, when we came near the ferris-wheel. The sun was over on the ridge, anyway, and it was all kind of glinted up with yellow up there, and it was getting more that way all the time. I was glad we were going up there, you can bet.
“What do you say we take a rest in the ferris-wheel?” Westy said. “It’s just about in our path.”
“Suits me,” I said.
Now I’ll tell you the way that wheel was. There were six cars and one of them was exactly at the top and one of them was exactly at the bottom. The trestle that the wheel hung on was only half as high as the wheel. Up near the top of the trestle was the axle. So as we came along in the same direction that the wheel was standing, the next car to the one on the bottom was right in front of us and hanging just about low enough so we could reach it. Those cars were not so big and they were boarded up just like everything else was in that old park.
Maybe you’ll say that the easiest thing would have been for us to climb into the lowest car which was hanging right plunk underneath. But that one seemed to be all boarded up tight. Besides, my patrol is crazy, just as I told you. The next car on the side of the wheel nearer to us was partly open on account of the boards being broken away. So what did Westy do but take a running jump with the rest of us all after him. As soon as three or four of us grabbed hold of the car,the old wheel began creaking and the car started moving down. Then all of us went sprawling out all over the ground.
“Try it again!” the kid shouted.“One—two——”
“Wait till it stops,” they all shouted.
I can’t tell you how far around that wheel went before it stopped. All I know is it kept creaking and creaking and then it stopped and there was a car right in front of us about ten feet from the ground. That one was most all open so it would be easy to tumble into it.
“One—two—three—go!” somebody said, and off we went for a good running jump.
I don’t know who the first one was to catch hold of the car. But anyway, we all went tumbling over each other into it and down it went, creaking, creaking, creaking, till it hung from the lowest part of the wheel.
“All the comforts of home,” Westy said. “I like this better than our private railroad car.”
“Sure,” I said, “it’s just the place for Pee-wee; he’s always going up in the air. Notice how it rocks? Oh, boy, I hope we don’t get seasick.”
In that car were two seats facing each other.Those cars were not made for as many as nine people, but we managed to crowd in all right. The floor of our car was about two or three feet from the ground and it swung like a swing. It was nice in there. Looking up through all the wire-work we could see the car at the top swinging.
“I’d like to be in that one,” one of the fellows said.
“If you were in that one it would bethisone,” I told him.
“What are you talking about?” Pee-wee said.
“I’m talking about whether anything can be something else,” I told him.
He said, “I suppose that’s what you call mental digestion.”
“It’s logic,” I told him. “If we were in that car, the nine of us, it would come down here, wouldn’t it? Don’t you know what the attraction of gravity is?”
“It never attracted me,” he said.
“The heaviest part of a thing goes down,” I said. “If you were up there you’d only come down here. The top car is the bottom one. Everything is something different.Upmeans where you’re not. See? What do we care?”
We all sat there with our heads thrown back looking at the car away up above us.
“See how it rocks?” Dorry said. “I bet it’s good and breezy up there.”
“Why don’t the others rock?” Hunt asked.
“Search me,” I said.
“There’s nothing on either side of that one at the top,” Westy said. “There isn’t even much of the wheel up there to break the force of the wind.”
“Correct,” I said. “Take twocredits—and one cookie. Here.”
“There isn’t any such thing as the top of a wheel,” Dorry said.
“Sure there is,” I told him; “the part that’s at the top is the top.”
“The part that’s at the top of what?” he came back at me.
“I should worry,” I said. “Don’t you think I’ve got wheels enough in my head without bothering about a ferris-wheel?”
So then we all started singing that crazy song that we used to sing when we were being hauled all over the country in our camp on wheels:
“There was a Duke of Yorkshire,He had ten thousand men;He marched them up the hill,And then he marched them down again.And when they’re up, they’re up,And when they’re down, they’re down;And when they’re only half way up,They’re neither up nor down.”
“There was a Duke of Yorkshire,He had ten thousand men;He marched them up the hill,And then he marched them down again.And when they’re up, they’re up,And when they’re down, they’re down;And when they’re only half way up,They’re neither up nor down.”
Table of Contents
UP IN THE AIR
It was nice in there.
“This is a good place to hide after killing a bandit,” Warde Hollister said.
“Look out, you’ll strain your neck,” I said to Dorry, because he was craning his neck looking up.
He said, “I’m trying to decide which car is the one that was at the bottom when we came along. I think it’s that one up top.”
“They’re all the same, only different,” I said.
He said, “If I’m right it means that the wheel went just half wayaround—one half a revolution.”
“Some highbrow,” I said. “Don’t talk about revolutions, they remind me of history. A half a revolution is better than the French Revolution. Take your feet off me. Do you want a whole car to yourself?”
“It’s pretty crowded in here,” Westy said.
“Well, go up on the top floor if you’re not satisfied,” I told him. “You’ll get a good view up there.”
“How do you know there’s a good view in that car?” Pee-wee said.
“I put it in there when the car was down here,” I told him. “Ask me something hard. Stop rocking, you make me dizzy.”
Of course as soon as I said that they all started rocking the car. That shows how they obey their patrol leader. The car went swinging more and more and the rusty old wheel creaked.
“Git—app, git—appTill papa comes home,”
“Git—app, git—appTill papa comes home,”
they started singing. Warde Hollister was as bad as any of them, if not worse.
“Have a heart,” I said. “Stop! What is this? A life on the ocean wave or a bee-line hike?”
“Rock-a-bye babyOn the tree top,”
“Rock-a-bye babyOn the tree top,”
they all went on. Honest, that patrol is the limit. I’d like to sell it second-hand and get a new one.
“Listen to the ghosts up there,” Westy said. “This old wheel sounds like a nineteen-sixteen Ford.”
I said, “You’lllooklike a nineteen-sixteen Ford in a minute if you don’t let up. Take that phonograph horn off my head,” I said to Pee-wee; “or I’ll throw it out of the car.”
Pee-wee started yelling through it, “Only ten cents a ride on the haunted ferris-wheel.A—llaboard! Only a dime, ten cents!”
We were all shaking, and our heads were wobbling and we were wiping our feet all over each other and the kid was shouting through his crazy megaphone, and I was just going to pull it away from him and throw it out of the car, when all of a sudden he dropped it and whispered,“Look—look!Up there!Look, quick!”
“You’re seeing stars,” I said; “no wonder.”
“Look!” he said. “It’sa—it’sth—th——”
“Now you see what you get from swinging too much,” I said.
“Look—athe—athe—uppp——”he stuttered.“I—sa—thbandidt——”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “No more bandits.Stop rocking, you fellows, will you; or this kid will be seeing some wild Indians.”
They didn’t pay any attention, only went on rocking the car more and more. They had been rocking so hard they couldn’t stop. Pee-wee’s jack-knife was bobbing against his belt, his compass was flopping around, his megaphone was all over our laps, and his cooking set was banging around on the floor. He was pointing up in the air the best he could and saying, “Stpthe car,stpthecar—ts—the bandit—tsthba—a—a—a—a—nt——”
The more I laughed the dizzier I got and the dizzier I got the more I laughed. They were all laughing so hard and they were all so dizzy they couldn’t speak.
“Atta—b—b—oy, kid!” one of them said.
Pee-wee was tumbling all around from one fellow’s lap to another’s and trying to talk. “Lkthba—a—a—a—a—nt——” That was about allIcould make of it.
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SEEING THINGS
Just then, I don’t know, I seemed to see a face. I didn’t know where I saw it but it was up above me.
I shouted,“Stop—op—op—thiscar—rar—Icom—mom—mom—andyou!”
Pretty soon the car stopped rocking.
“It’s—it’s the bandit,” Pee-wee said; “did you see?”
“You’ve been seeing things,” Westy said.
“I’ll leave it to Roy,” the kid said.
“I saw a face,” I told them; “it was——”
“Shh—look!” Pee-wee whispered; “straight up.”
I looked, and away up through all the trestle work, I could see a head move back into the car at the top. The big axle of the wheel was right between our car and that other one and it hidpart of the car. It seemed as if that person up there had been peeking at us and drew in his head quickly so as not to be seen. I saw this much, that he had a cap on.
“Did you see?” I whispered to Westy.
“Sure I did,” he said. “That was no baseball target.”
“Baseball target?” the kid whispered, all excited. “That’s the bandit;nowwe’ve got him.”
Dorry said, “Don’t look up again; don’t let him think we saw him. He had a cap on. Did you see?”
“I suppose I’ll have to climb up there and shoot him,” Warde Hollister said.
“You sit where you are,” I told him. I knew he was only joking but I saw that was no time for fooling and I was afraid he might spoil everything.
“You could never climb up there,” I said. “Anyway,thisis no false alarm. I saw him as plain as day.”
“So did I,” Westy whispered. Hunt and Will said they thought they had seen him too, but they weren’t sure because they had been seeing everything on account of being so dizzy.
Westy said, “Don’t talk loud, remember sound ascends.”
I made believe I was looking all around at the sky and I stole a look up that way again. Just as I did I saw a kind of a movement. I kind of knew that the person away up there in that car was watching us and sticking his head out as much as he dared.
Westy said, “We don’t know whether it’s the bandit or not, but whoever it is, we’ve got him. He’d break his neck jumping from up there. He couldn’t get hold of the trestle on either side of the car. That car must have been down here when we came along. Whoever it is, we’ve got him as sure as if we had handcuffs on him.”
“We’vefoiledhim,” the kid whispered. “You said boys never capture bandits and things except in books.Nowyou see.”
Westy said, “Well, we’ve sure got him, and believe me, that’s a new way to capture a bandit.”
“It shows that scouts are resourceful,” Pee-wee said.
I said, “Sure, they’re so resourceful they capture bandits without knowing it. We don’t even know if he is a bandit.”
“We know we’ve got him. Isn’t that enough?” the kid said.
Jiminies, whoever he was, I could see we had him all right. He was as safe up there as he would have been in a dungeon. Because you can see how it was. The big tall trestle-work that held the axle was only as high as the middle of the wheel. Maybe he could have climbed down that, and maybe he couldn’t. But from the middle of the wheel up to the top the iron-work wasn’t close enough for him to reach from one brace to another. I didn’t see how he could even get out of the car to the nearest girder. If he took a chance, he’d break his neck. I suppose, just like Westy said, he had made for the lowest car and it had gone up with him on account of our weight hanging onto some of the other cars. Nine fellows are heavier than one. Gee whiz, it did seem a funny way to catch any one, but that fellow was caught, sure. I wondered how he felt up there.
“Do you think he’ll take a chance of his life?” one of the fellows asked.
“I bet he’s half crazy up there,” I said.
“Maybe he’ll shoot,” the kid said, kind of scared.
“What good would that do him?” Will said. “He’d have to shoot the whole nine of us, six or seven of us anyway, before the wheel would move. And besides, the axle is in his way.”
“If we all leave here the car will come down,” Warde Hollister said. “He could rock it so as to get the wheel started.”
“It’s rocking a little now,” Westy said.
“I know what I’m going to do,” I told them. “I’m going to find out who he is, if I can.”
“You’re not going to go up and ask him!” the kid said. “You might better use the megaphone. Safety first.”
I said, “I’m going to make believe I’m hunting for something and see if there are any footprints around. If there are and they’re from the direction of the river, that will look bad.”
On the fancy seats were four wooden knobs, two on each seat. I said, “Turn one of those and see if it screws off.”
Warde was sitting at the end of one of theseats and he kept turning the knob till it came off.
I said, “Reach down under yourknees—don’t anybody lookup—reach down under your knees and wrap your handkerchief tight around that knob, so it will look like a baseball or a tennis ball. Then throw it over here.”
The paint was all gone from those knobs and the wood was all cracked and rotten like all the wood in that old park. I wanted the ball to look white so it would be good and plain to the fellow up there.
In a few seconds Warde and I began throwing it to each other. No one would be suspicious seeing us, that’s sure. Pretty soon I threw it good and hard, like Christy Matthewson, only different, and it went flying out in the direction of the river and dropped. It went in the long grass.
And then is when I had good luck. Because I didn’t have to go five feet from that car before I found something. So you see I didn’t get off the track of our bee-line enough to really call it getting off the track.
I made believe I was hunting for the ball, andin about ten seconds, good night, right there near the car were footprints. I could see them as plain as day. They came from the direction of the river, too. Not in a bee-line the way we had come. But just the same they came from the river, all right.
“I can’t find the pesky old ball,” I shouted. “Why don’t you throw straight when you’re throwing? Come on, let’s go to Little Valley and get some ice cream cones. We should worry.”
“I like this old car,” Westy shouted. “If we leave it maybe the wind will carry it up. Let’s tie it with our rope and come back here and eat our supper in it on the way home. After that it can spin around till it gets dizzy for all we care. Wha’d’ you say?”
I could just hear him saying, “Shhh,” to the other fellows.
That’s Westy Martin all over; he always has his wits about him. I’d carry mine around with me, too, if I had any, only I haven’t got any. Sometimes Pee-wee has good ideas, but he doesn’t carry them with him because he has so much elseto carry. But Westy has a dandy brain, I’ll say that for him. I saw right away what he was driving at.
“That’s a crackerjack idea,” I shouted. “Let’s eat our supper here on the way back. We’ll tie the car and then we can loosen it again afterwards. Come on, let’s hurry up. This is a nice lonely place to eat in and nobody anywhere around to bother us.”
“Hurrah!” they all shouted.
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FETTERS
So that’s the way we did. As we went away we were all careful not to look up, and we talked about all different things as if we didn’t know there was any one up in that wheel at all. And if anybody ever tells you that boy scouts can’t really catch grown-up people except in books, you can tell them I said they can do it in amusement parks too.
“I hope he’s the highwayman, anyway,” I said to Pee-wee. “You’re not the only one that goes up in the air.”
“It shows what scouts can do,” Pee-wee said. “We bound him with ropes, didn’t we?”
“Absolutely,” I said, “only the rope was quite a way off from him.”
“What difference does that make?” he wanted to know. “He’s held by ropes, isn’t he? Can you deny that?”
“I guess you’re right,” Westy laughed.
“What are we going to do now?” Hunt wanted to know.
“We’re going to keep our eyes on that tree,” I said, “and go in a bee-line. It will take more than an auto bandit to get me off the straight path. Don’t look back whatever you do.”
I guess it was about five o’clock then; anyway it must have been after four because we were getting hungry. It’s strenuous work catching bandits. The tree up on the ridge was all kind of red. The sky was bright over there and it looked fine. That’s the time I like best, when the sun begins to get red. I was wondering if we could see my house when we got up on the ridge.
Pretty soon we climbed over the old amusement park fence and then we just had to cut straight across fields till we came to Little Valley. Before we got there all the windows in the houses looked as if there were lights shining inside of them. That was a sign the sun was beginning to go down. When the windows look bright like that in August you’ll know it’s after five o’clock. In Bridgeboro at six o’clock some of the houses in Little Valleylook as if they were on fire. We got fooled that way once. We went all the way there by the road and there wasn’t any building burning down at all. Gee whiz, we were mad!
Little Valley isn’t so big. The fellows over there come to Bridgeboro High School. There’s a one-patrol troop there. Harry Donnelle lives there too. He told us whenever we came to Little Valley to be quiet so as not to wake the people up. He says that place ought to be called Rip Van Winkleberg. But anyway, I don’t see how you can wake a town up if it’s dead. The only thing that’s quick about Little Valley is some quicksand near the creek. But they’ve got a good ball field there for the Bridgeboro team to beat them on. Anyway, I’m not so stuck on baseball. Me for stalking and tracking and all that.
Now when we got to Little Valley we marched in formation just the same as we did in Bridgeboro, two rows of three fellows each. I marched ahead with my official staff and we let Warde Hollister go ahead of us all with the cardboard standard because he didn’t have any scout suit. I bet Little Valley felt like Belgium when it saw us coming.
We had to go across one lawn, but a lady told us it was all right. Pee-wee started to give her a lecture about the scouts but I grabbed him by the collar and made him come along. He rattled like an old junk wagon. The lady said he looked like Don Quixote. I don’t know much about that fellow, but if I ever meet him I’m going to apologize to him for what she said.
Next we came to Main Street, named after the water main. By that time we had a crowd of kids at our heels again and everybody was staring at us. I hope they liked us. A man let us go through his store and climb over the back fence and then we came out on the village green.
There’s a band-stand on that village green and a whole crowd of kids climbed up into it so as to see us. Pee-wee looked mighty proud. A lot of grown people were standing around too, staring at us and laughing. I guess they thought our big sign looked pretty funny.
One man said, “Is the civilian population going to be spared?”
I said, “The civilized population is going to be spared, but if there are any ice cream cones in this berg they’re going to die a horrible death.Plant our banner in the village green,” I said to Warde, “and all gather around your gallant leader.”
The man said, “How do you feel about peanut brittle?”
“No peanut brittle can get past us,” I told him. “We eat it alive.”
Oh, boy, there was some excitement. The next thing we knew a box of peanut brittle was going round. There was a crowd of people all around watching and reading what it said on our standard and laughing. Most always that’s the way it is with people when they see scouts. Somebody kicked a grocery box over to where we were and the man called, “Speech,speech.” I got up on the box and I said:
“Don’t anybody be afraid, we’re not going to hurt you.”
A girl that was standing there said, “The idea! Did you ever hear of such a thing?Hurt us?Do you think we’re afraid of a patrol of boy scouts?”
I said, “You knowest not what thou sayest, girl. We’ve devastated the whole country from Blakeley’s Hill to this spot. The only thing we’ve left alive is the grass. And even that we trod under our feet.”
“We’reinvincible!” Pee-wee shouted. “Do you know what that is?”
“Do you think I haven’t got a dictionary, Mr. Smarty?” she said.
I said, “Silence. Take a demerit. Where is the police department of this town?”
Somebody shouted, “He’s home eating his supper. Do you want to go and see him?”
I said, “No, we want him to come and see us. Can’t you see from our sign we’re on a bee-line hike?”
Somebody shouted, “He’s at supper. Do you have to see him?”
I said, “No, the army and navy will do just as well; we’re not particular. Wait till I consult with my official staff.”
I couldn’t understand what my official staff said because his mouth was full of peanut brittle. “Here’s the box, eat that too,” I said.
Then I said good and loud, “We have an important communication to address to the police department. We’ve caught a bandit——”
“We’ve got him bound with fetters,” the kid shouted.
“Give me that phonograph horn,” I told him; “the crowd is growing bigger.”
Good night, that was the end of me. I was superseded like a general in the thirdgrade—I mean in history. There was Pee-wee standing on the grocery box, his aluminum cooking set all over the ground, shouting through the old phonograph horn at the top of his voice. A little way off I could see a cop coming across the green. I guess he was going to chase us off first, till he heard what Pee-wee was saying.
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