When I got to the hotel sheds, there was Pee-wee standing all out of breath, and Harry and all the rest of them standing around, gaping. Brent was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak, and Harry was saying, “Somescout!Somebullhead!”
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“Look in—look in—look in—side—it!” Pee-wee panted, “the back—seat.”
“It isn’t my car at all,” Harry said, “it’s got a New York license. If it hadn’t been for that old tin can of yours stopping every ten feet last night I could have got a squint at the tail-light. Smiled at it, huh? You smiled at the wrong car. You started somebody else’s motor.”
“It’s a nineteen-twenty touring Cadillac,” Brent said, laughing all the while; “Pee-wee was the first to get in it. He showed me the nice leather seats and the shock-absorbers.”
“We’llneedsome shock-absorbers before the day’s out, I’m thinking,” Harry said; “this is some swell scout outfit—not! Got into the wrong car! Look up the street and see if you see the sheriff coming. Pee-wee, don’t ever mention the name of scout to me again. ‘A scout is observant!’ Excuse me, while I smile.”
“Well,” Brent said, all the while trying not to laugh, “we’re out for adventure; we have to take what comes.”
“We don’t have to take other people’s machines,” Harry said. He wasn’t mad, because he always sees the funny side of things himself, and he was laughing, too, but I guess all of us felt pretty cheap, because a scout—well,youknow——
“I never thought I’d live to see the day when a party of Boy Scouts would steal an auto,” he said. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything to do, but sit around and wait for the owner to come and have us arrested. I wonder if they have a nice comfortable jail here, with modern improvements. I hate a jail without electric lights.”
Brent said in that funny way of his, “I rather like the way things are turning out. I’ve never been in jail. I’ve often promised little Bill here that some day we’d go to jail, and now we’re going to have our wish. I’ve read about prisoners escaping from jail—ladders, files, and all that sort of stuff. Now’s our chance. We’ll drug a keeper. Ever drug a keeper, Harry? I’d a great deal rather escape from a jail than find buried treasure. That’s a real adventure; regular Monte Cristo stuff.”
“I kinder think I’d like that, too,” Harry said; “I never thought of it before.”
“This is just the right kind of a trip,” Brent said, “we don’t have to run after the adventures; they come afterus.”
“Oh, they’ll come afterusall right,” Harry said.
“Will we have to go to prison for twenty years?” poor little Skinny piped up.
“People who make mistakes like that ought to go up for life,” Harry said; “and then some.”
“Lis—lis—lis—lis—’en!” Pee-wee began shouting, all the while waving the newspaper in the air. He was just getting his breath, but nobody paid any attention to him. Harry and Brent sat there on a bench, side by side, and it was awful funny to see them—they just kept us laughing.
“Look—look—under the seat!” Pee-wee was trying to say.
“And the tell-tale papers are gone,” Harry said. “Curses! Curses!”
“My idea,” Brent said, “would be to escape into a boat from one of the jail windows. I hope the jail is near a river, but I don’t suppose we can have everything. It ought to be on a dark night. This is going to be great.”
“We should have kidnapped a maiden,” Harry said; “there ought to be a maiden in it. If there had only been a gold-haired maiden in the machine——”
“Shut up! You’re crazy!” Pee-wee yelled. “The plot is thicker—it’s terribly thick. Thereisa maiden—listen—shut up—listen, will you—there is a—a maiden!”
“Is she under the back seat?” Brent wanted to know.
“Open the back seat and let her out, poor girl,” Harry said.
“How about ransom?” Brent said.
“Read this paper!” at last Pee-wee managed to shout. “Will you keep still and read this paper?The plot is thicker than you think it is.”
“It must be about solid,” Harry said.
“Read this paper before you look under the seat,” Pee-wee yelled.
“Speak not to me, P. Harris,” Harry said; “you’re the cause of my downfall. I was an honest young man until I metyou.”
“You make me tired!” Pee-wee fairly screamed.
Just then somebody, gee whiz, I don’t know who, because everyone was laughing so, but anyway, somebody started to lift the back seat of the Cadillac when Pee-wee tumbled pell-mell into the car and pushed him out and sat plunk in the middle of the seat himself.
“There’s going to be—a—a—what-d’ye-call-it—a revolution!” he said.
“I’ll join it,” Brent said.
“Put me down,” Harry told him, “the more adventures the better. I like revolutions.”
“I mean arevelation,” Pee-wee yelled; “you just read that paper!”
Laugh! Gee whiz, I don’t know whether anyone there remembered about those things under the seat. Maybe Grove thought he had dreamed it. As for Skinny, he had been too far gone under the buffalo robe to think twice about it, I guess. I just watched Harry and Brent, while Harry read the articles out loud, with all the fellows crowding around him, to get a squint at it. And all the while, Pee-wee sat straight up on the middle of that back seat like a king on his throne. He was holding the seat down against all comers. He looked like a young hero.
“A burglary, hey?” Harry said, awful funny. “Let’s see; jewelry and silverware and a punch bowl. Fine. And Elsa West. Brent, you didn’t steal Elsa’s necklace, did you, without me knowing anything about it? I would have been glad to help you. I make a specialty of necklaces. Well, P. Harris, I’ve read the article. Tell us the worst.”
“You said a scout was not observant,” Pee-wee said, very solemn like. “You said it sarcastic, sort of. It was an insinuation. You said never to mention scouts to you again—didn’t you? You said I was a something-or-other.”
“You are,” Harry said; “deny it, if you can.”
“Who’s responsible for bringing this machine here? You saidIwas.I have won five hundred dollars!I saved—saved that what’s-her-name’s necklace for her. A scout is helpful—it says so. She has to thank the Boy Scouts if her necklace is safe. Those burglars arefoiled! Maybe you think you can get the best of the Boy Scouts. Let those people hunt around all they want—inside and outside—they won’t find that punch bowl. Do you know why?Because all those things are safe in the hands of the 1st Bridgeboro Troop, Boy Scouts of America.That’s why. Look!Here’sthe box of jewelry.Here’sthe necklace.Here’sthe silverware. It’ssaved, because I started Brent Gaylong off in this automobile. A scout is—a scout is—efficient—sonow!”
What did I tell you about Pee-wee? No matter what he does, he always lands right side up. He makes a mistake and turns out a hero.
You can’t beat him.
Harry said, “Well, I guess it’s back to Crystal Falls for us. I hope we’ll find my car there. I don’t want to set a bad example to the Boy Scouts, but you see what a good turn one can do stealing an automobile. I hope you boys will always remember that.”
Brent said in that funny way of his, “I’ll never say another word against stealing; Pee-wee has taught me a lesson.”
“Do you think the burglars were in one of those houses when we started away in the car?”
“I think they were inside the house for a second haul when we rode away in their machine,” Brent said. “Make a good movie play, wouldn’t it?”
“Will we go to jail now?” poor little Skinny piped up.
“We’re heroes!” Pee-wee shouted.
“Well, go ahead back,” Brent said; “I think, considering the high cost of gasoline that we’ll roll on and find a good place to camp in—where is it? The woods north of Watertown?”
“If we don’t overtake you before you get to Syracuse,” Harry said, “bang up north and wait for us at Kenny’s Hotel in Watertown.”
Brent said, “Now look here. You don’t know how long you’ll be in Crystal Falls. By all the rules of the game, Pee-wee will marry the gold-haired judge’s daughter—— I mean the judge’s gold-haired daughter—and it’ll be a week before we can join forces. So this is what we’re going to do; we’re going to motor on to what’s that place—Steuben Junction. We’ve got a full camping outfit in our little old flivver and by the time you get there, we’ll have a nice little camp in the woods all ready for you. Now I’ll tell you what you do. If you don’t overtake us, before we get to Steuben Junction, go to the railroad station or the drug store——”
“I’d rather go to the drug store,” Pee-wee yelled.
“And ask where the Newburgh scouts have their camp. You’ll find us.”
So that was the way we fixed it, and after Brent and his patrol had started, the rest of us piled into the Cadillac and “turned our prow” (that’s what Harry said) for Crystal Falls.
“I’m going to be the one to return the stuff,” Pee-wee said.
“You going to make a speech?” Harry asked him.
All the while I was wondering who the auto belonged to. It had a New York license and I didn’t believe it belonged to the burglars.
Poor little Skinny said, “Will we get arrested now?”
Harry said, “No, we’re all going to be heroes now. We’re in the hands of P. Harris.”
“We foiled them,” Pee-wee said.
“That’s what we did,” Harry said. “I guess there wasn’t any third man. I wonder what those crooks thought when they came out with some more stuff and saw that the machine was gone.”
“I bet they were peeved,” I said.
“I bet they had unkind thoughts,” Grove said.
“I bet they swore, but it didn’t do them any good,” Pee-wee shouted, “they were—what-d’ye-call-it—checkmated.”
“You have no right to say that,” Harry said, “there is no reason why a burglar should not be a gentleman. Naturally they were annoyed; any one would be, under the same circumstances.”
When we got to Crystal Falls, Harry ran the car through the street where he had left his own car, and there it was just as we had left it, and there were a lot of people standing around, looking at it. I guess maybe they thought it belonged to the burglars, hey?
Harry said, “Anybody here in authority?”
A man opened his coat and showed us a big steel badge, “I’m constable,” he said.
Harry said, “Well, Mr. Constable, that car belongs to me. It’s stalled. Here’s my license card; just compare it with the plate. All right? I wish you’d see that nobody fools with it until we get back; Judge West lives just around the corner, doesn’t he?”
“What cher want to see the jedge about?” the constable asked us.
Harry said, “Well, we’re boy scouts and we had an idea that we might be able to find his property.”
“Had an idee, huh?” the man said, kind of, you know, sarcastic like. “Well now, don’t you put sech crack brained notions into the heads o’ these kids.”
“No?” Harry said, awful funny.
“’Cause this here ain’t no case for boy scouts,” the constable said.
Harry said, “No, really?”
It was awful funny to see them. The constable was standing right outside the car with a lot of people around him, and Harry was sitting in the driver’s place, with his hands on the wheel, looking down at that bunch.
“How does it come you own two cars?” the constable said, very shrewd like.
“Is that a riddle?” Harry said.
“Where’d you come from?” the man asked.
“Well, we came from Utica,” Harry said, “we happened to read about the robbery in the papers there—five hundred bucks reward, you know. We couldn’t resist that.”
“City fellers, ain’t yer?” the constable said.
“Right the first time,” Harry said; “you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes; how did you ever find it out?”
The man said, “Well, I ain’t got no use fer these here amatoor detectives. And I ain’t got no use fer filling youngsters’ heads up with a lot of truck about doin’ sleuth work, neither. ’Cause all that’s a part uv dime novels. Clews and sech things is for thepo-lice. Them stolen goods is in some pawnshop or maybe buried, and as soon as them two swabs is ready to give us the tip, I’m ready to talk business with ’em—that’s me.”
“What could be nicer?” Harry said.
“They’ll weaken,” the man said.
“Did you ask themplease?” Harry wanted to know.
“If you’re set on going around to the jedge’s,” the main said, “I’ll go round with yer. But don’t you bother your heads aboutof-ficial business. We got those chaps and we’ll get the booty; I got two clews I’m workin’ on now.” Just then he climbed in and sat down between Grove and I on the back seat. “And I’ll tell you this,” he said, “that stolen property’s miles and miles away from here.”
“You’re sitting on it,” Harry said, very calm and sober.
“Settin’ on what?” the constable said.
“On my cap,” Harry said; “would you mind handing it to me?”
Gee whiz, I could hardly keep a straight face. Grove had to look out of the car, he was laughing so hard. I was afraid Skinny’d blurt something out, but he didn’t. I guess he thought we were all being arrested.
“Sometimes a feller sets right down on a thing and never knows it,” the constable said.
“Very true,” Harry said. “I know a man who sat on a committee and never knew it. Judge lives just around the corner, you say?”
The constable said, “Yes, but I tell you now, he won’t be able to give you no clews. He’s a good jedge, but when it comes to solving a case, he can’t see very deep.”
“Sometimes you don’t have to see verydeep,” Harry said—“just a few inches or so. Are you comfortable back there, Constable? So you think the Boy Scouts are not much good at this kind of thing, hey? Think it wouldn’t be worth while under the—under——”
“Shh!” I said. I just couldn’t help it.
“Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be no use at all,” the constable said, very important, “because we’ve got the case in hand, and we know how to handle these things. My cal’calation is, that them things is in pawn in Noo York, or maybe Albany. But then, again, they may be under——”
“Exactly so,” Harry said; “they may be under——”
“Underground,” the constable said. “They may be buried in the woods down near the station. I’m goin’ ter hev a search made there to-morrer. Leastways, me and my depyties ain’t goin’ ter be fooled. We ain’t sayin’ nuthin’, but we had a rough little tussle with them two swabs down ter the station, and we landed on top, by gum! And we’ll land on top in regards to this here stolen vallybles—by gum!”
“Bully for you, and a couple of hips for Crystal Falls,” Harry said; “you may be on top already. Who knows. You’re not telling all you know.”
“That’s what I ain’t,” the constable said. “Well, here we are at the jedge’s.”
Harry said, “So this is the judge’s house, hey? Nice house—windows n’everything. Well, Constable, I hope you’ll get that five hundred reward. Funny thing about the Boy Scouts, they don’t care anything for money. Can’t seem to drum the idea out of their heads. But when it comes to foiling burglars and all that sort of thing, why that’s their favorite outdoor sport. And stolen property, they just eat it alive! Let me see if I can’t root out some truck from under that seat; sorry to disturb you.”
We all climbed out and the constable said, “They ought ter hev sech crazy notions drummed out uv their heads.Hello! What’s that?”
Harry said, “This? Oh, it’s just a punch bowl; hold it a second, will you Roy? Don’t drop it. Here, Grove, take this jewelry box; look out for it, it’s got a pearl necklace inside. Take these silver spoons, too. The sun’s getting hot, Constable; it’s going to be warm this afternoon. Here, somebody take this silver teapot. Cup of tea wouldn’t go half bad now, would it?”
Jimin-etty! You should have seen that constable—you just ought to have seen him. He just stood there gaping, while Harry handed the things out. “So you see you were on top after all; hey Constable?” he said. “And a man may sit down on something and never know it. Let Pee-wee take those things—he’s the doctor. The rest of us will follow. Come along up, Constable, we’re going to make Mrs. West give us each a cup of iced tea for a reward.”
Honest, I couldn’t tell you which was funnier to look at, Pee-wee or that constable. Harry didn’t smile at all. There stood the kid, holding the big silver punch bowl in his two arms, and the silver teapot and the spoons and things, and the plush jewelry box piled inside it. I never saw him look so small as he did with that big load.
I NEVER SAW HIM LOOK SO SMALL AS HE DID WITH THAT BIG LOAD.
I NEVER SAW HIM LOOK SO SMALL AS HE DID WITH THAT BIG LOAD.
And the constable—g-o-o-d night!There he stood, gaping at Pee-wee, while the rest of us began laughing, all except Harry. He acted just as if nothing had happened at all. “Now, if there’s anything else missing in town,” he said, “just let us know, and we’ll get it. Speak while we’re here, because in about fifteen minutes we’re off for buried treasure. You see we used to make a specialty of German spies, but now there aren’t any; things are dull since the war. Any little job-lot of mysteries you want unravelled? No? Oh, very well. We make a specialty of murders and kidnappings and Bolsheviki plots; we like Bolsheviki plots best of all. But we’re not proud. We’re always willing to take a little burglary case to accommodate some one. All right, Pee-wee, forward march—up the steps—and lookout you don’t slip! Won’t you join us, Constable? The more the merrier.”
Gee whiz, I had to laugh; there stood Pee-wee with his arms around the big bowl and the other things piled inside it, away up to his neck. He looked awful funny.
“You leave it to me,” he said; “I know how to talk to a judge, because my father knows a man whose brother was a judge.”
“Trust us,” Harry told him; “we won’t say a word.”
“You have to handle judges a special way,” our young hero said.
Pretty soon the door opened, and there stood a girl about—oh, I don’t know, I guess she was about sixteen.
“Here’s your stuff,” Pee-wee said; “we brought it back to you.” And he marched into the house with the rest of us after him. “Where shall I put it down?” he asked her.
Even the girl couldn’t help laughing, the kid looked so funny. Then she began wringing her hands, kind of happy like (you know the way they do), and shouted, “Mother! Oh, Mother! Come down! Everything is here, they’ve brought it back!”
Her mother came downstairs all excited, and I guess she must have thought it was kind of funny, too, to see us all standing around, and the punch bowl, with everything piled inside it, on a table, and Pee-wee standing right beside it like a guard.
She said, “Oh, Constable! Howdidyou do it? How can weeverthank you? You don’t mean that these boys—stole——”
“I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout it, Miss West,” he said; “it seems these here youngsters recovered it. I don’t know what sort of clew they worked on. Looks as if they was pretty clever, I got to admit. Looks like somep-u-r-t-yshrewdde-tective work, I got to allow.”
Then Harry spoke up and said, “Mrs. West and Miss West, it is the privilege of the Boy Scouts to restore your valuable property which was stolen. Doubtless you have heard of the Miracle Man; allow me to introduce him, Mr. Walter Harris, known far and wide as Pee-wee the Sleuth. Tell them, Walter, of how we got on the trail of this treasure, of the clews we followed, and of how you ferreted out the secret of where the valuables lay hidden. It is really a wonderful story, Mrs. West.”
“Ohdotell us,” the girl began crying; “I know you’re just wonderful—Mr. Harris.”
All the while, Pee-wee was shifting from one foot to another and scowling at Harry, and looking uncomfortable.
“Scouts seldom go wrong, Miss West,” Harry said to the girl; “even in the darkness of night, they cannot be foiled. Their senses are so highly developed, and they are so alert, that missing a train, for instance, or getting onto the wrong train, are things unknown to them. A scout is unerring. He can even identify a tree among thousands of other trees, in the dense forest——”
“Isn’t that perfectlywonderful!” Elsa West said.
All the while, Pee-wee was wriggling his neck in his collar and shifting from one foot to another and trying to catch Harry’s eye.
“The manner in which these young scouts were able to recover your valuables, Mrs. West,” Harry went on, very sober in that funny way of his, “is truly remarkable. I was not with them when they discovered the first clew—I think it was a shock absorber; was it not, Walter? But I am glad that I can share in the honor which is his—and theirs. The Boy Scouts are nothing less than wonderful, Mrs. West. Their great accuracy of vision—— But I will let the Miracle Man tell you in his own words. Come Pee-wee.”
I think Pee-wee would have killed Harry Donnelle if he had had him alone. He just stood there, scowling and shifting, and then he began.
He said, “Well, I’ll tell you how it is about the Boy Scouts. They make some dandy mistakes. Other fellers don’t make such good mistakes—see? You have to admit that there are good mistakes, don’t you?”
“Oh, positively,” Harry said.
Mrs. West whispered to her daughter, “Isn’t he too cute?”
“Some of the worst things that ever happened are good, aren’t they?” the kid went on. I could hardly keep a straight face. “Suppose a house burns down. That isn’t good is it?”
“We follow you,” Harry said.
“But if somebody gets rescued, that’s good.”
“Oh, it’s splendid,” Elsa West said.
“Even if you get into the wrong automobile it might be good,” our young hero said. “Maybe, kind of, there might be times when the wrong thing is better than the right one. That doesn’t stop anybody from being a hero, does it?”
Harry said, “Not at all.”
“Well then,” Pee-wee said, “do you know Shakespeare?”
“I never met him,” Harry said.
“Don’t you know he’s dead?” the kid shouted.
“I didn’t even know he was sick,” Harry came back.
“He was smarter than you are,” the kid hollered at him, “and he said, ‘All’s well that ends well’ because it’s in my copy book. That means it’s good to make a mistake, if you can do a good turn. See? What’s the difference between two Cadillacs? Even suppose we got into the wrong one and drove away and then found——”
By now everybody there was laughing and Mrs. West kept whispering to her daughter that Pee-wee was “excruciating” and “just too cute.” I guess they were beginning to see how it was.
“There’s your valuable stuff,” the kid said; “that’s the main thing, isn’t it?”
Mrs. West was awful nice. She said, “Indeedit’s the main thing, and how can we ever thank you? But tell us all about how it happened. I don’t care anything about mistakes or accidents. You’ve brought us back our things—and it’s wonderful.”
“That’s just what I said,” Pee-wee told her; “you should worry about how we did it. Didn’t we prevent the burglars from going away with those things? Sure we did. Because we went away in their car. See?”
Then Harry said, smiling in that nice way he has; he said, “It was just one of those happy little errors that only scouts know how to commit, Mrs. West.” Then he told her just how it was, and she said it was, you know, some kind of a word—providential. That means lucky.
“Oh, and father will give you five hundred dollars just as he said,” Elsa West spoke up, “and you deserve it.”
“We foiled them,” Pee-wee said.
“Indeed you foiled them,” Mrs. West told him, smiling all the while; “and you’re going to stay and have some refreshments and wait for the judge to come home. He’ll besoglad to see you, and he’ll give you a check, just as he said.”
“How about that, Pee-wee?” Harry said. “We shouldn’t want to make any more mistakes, eh?”
Gee whiz, I knew that Scout Harris wouldn’t make any mistake about that, anyway. Trust him for that.
“That’s one thing about scouts that you don’t know about,” he said, “because anyway, they can’t do that on account of a rule. They can’t take a reward for—of course, I don’t mean they can’t—— Now, if somebody happened to give a scout a—say a piece of pie—that would be all right. If it’s just kind of—you know—something to eat—but I mean money.”
Mrs. West said, “You shall have a whole pie all to yourself. I’m glad that there is no rule against that, at least. While you’re eating it, you can tell us all about the scouts, because I’mveryinterested.”
“So am I,” said Elsa; “so you must all come in the dining-room this instant so we can serve you all, and if you’rerealscouts, you can prove it by showing us that you have appetites, and Mr. Harris can give us a lecture.”
Oh, boy! Believeme, Mr. Harris gave them more than a lecture. He gave them a demonstration.
Cracky, that’s one thing I’m crazy about—lemon meringue pie.Mm—mm!!There’s only one thing I like better than a piece of lemon meringue pie, and that’s two pieces. My mother says you shouldn’t eat the crust, but she doesn’t know the rule about a scout being thorough. Always leave your camp site clean. It’s the same with your plate.
Most of the time we were at that house, Harry Donnelle was talking with Elsa West. Gee whiz, I bet she liked him a lot, hey? He told her he couldn’t play the victrola, because he had never taken any victrola lessons; that fellow’s crazy.
Anyway, they were sorry when we started off, and Elsa said she hoped we’d find the buried gold. She said that was one thing she’d like to be-a boy. Gee whiz, I couldn’t blame her, because anyway, we have a lot of fun. She said she wasn’t afraid of rain.
We left the auto there in charge of the constable, and he said he’d call up the Department of Motor Vehicles and find out who had the license number that was on that car. Because one thing sure, it didn’t belong to those thieves. Harry said we should worry about it and that we might as well let that constable do something to earn his salary. I guess it took him the rest of that day to get over his shock. I guess he thought we were crazy when he saw we wouldn’t take the reward, but that’s the way it is with us. But, of course, we don’t count eats. You can give us all the eats you want to.
Harry said, “Well, as long as we’ve been mixed up with burglars, let’s take our machine to a garage and get up against somerealrobbers. They’ll probably tell me I need everything renewed except the smell. Come ahead.”
We had to get somebody to tow us to the nearest robbers’ den and then we found that Harry’s machine needed a “complete overhauling.” That’s what they always tell you. But anyway, they didn’t get away with it, and in about an hour we were rolling along the road for Utica.
“Do you know what I’d like to do to you?” Pee-wee shouted at Harry.
“No, break it to me gently,” Harry said.
“I’d like to hit you a good rap on the—— Why didn’t you let me do the talking from the start?”
“If you hit me and I should ever find it out——” Harry said.
“You don’t know how to talk to a judge’s family,” Pee-wee said; “you have to use logic. Do you know what that is?”
“No, what’s that?” Harry asked him.
“It’s where you prove a thing by showing how one thing matches with another—kind of,” the kid said.
“Well, suppose you get in the wrong automobile; is that logic?” Harry asked him.
“If there’s stolen goods in it, yes,” the kid shouted.
“All right,” Harry said, “here’s another. What’s the difference between a shock-absorber?”
“You make me tired,” Pee-wee yelled.
“What’s the difference between a pirate and a garage keeper?”
“None!” we all yelled.
It was about five o’clock in the afternoon when we got back to Utica. It looked just the same as before; all the buildings were there and everything. Harry said it hadn’t changed a bit.
Now if we had followed the road from Utica to Syracuse, we wouldn’t have had the adventure that I’m going to tell you about. I bet you’re glad we took another road, hey? Anyway, this is how it happened. In the restaurant where we stopped to get some eats in Utica, we met some moving picture men with a camera. Gee, that’s the way it is with Harry Donnelle—he gets acquainted with everybody.
Those men said that they had just come from a place named Lurin, where there were a lot of cliffs and things. They said they had been making part of a photo-play up there. I bet they have a lot of fun, those men. They told us that if we didn’t mind a couple of steep hills, that would be the shortest way to get to Watertown, because it cut off a corner.
One thing about Harry Donnelle, he always wants to do things different from the regular way. Believe me, if you’re in an auto the best way is always to follow the state road. But Harry said that if we hit into the road north through Alder Creek and Boonville, we’d be able to get to Watertown that night.
“I bet it’s a rocky road to Dublin,” Grove said.
“Will we fall off the cliffs?” poor little Skinny piped up.
“Not afraid are you, Alf?” Harry said, nice and pleasant like.
I didn’t say anything, because we had no camping outfit and it costs a lot of money at hotels, and if we could cut out Syracuse and get to Watertown that night, I saw it would be a good thing. Only we didn’t know anything about the road.
Harry said, “Well, the only way we can know is to find out.” That was just like him. If you tell him a thing is risky, he wants to do it right away.
So about six o’clock we turned into the road going north, that isn’t marked on the tour map. The first thing we did was to get onto the wrong road and bunk our noses into Rome.
I said, “If we meet Julius Caesar, we’ll ask which is the road for Watertown.” There was a dandy ice-cream store in Rome, so Harry said we might as well do as the Romans do, and have some ice cream. Rome didn’t look very ancient, but good night, the road out of it was ancient enough.
We went back to Deerfield and hit the road north, and the next thing we ran plunk into Old Forge.
“Everything around here is out of date,” Harry said; “Ancient Rome and Old Forge. I long forNewYork.”
By that time it was dark. We followed the road south again to Alder Creek, and then hit into the other road north, and went through Boonville, so then we knew we were all right. Anyway, we were on the right road, only the road was all wrong. Believe me, that cow-path had some nerve calling itself a road. After about an hour we passed Lurin and then, good night, some hill! Up, up, up, up, till pretty soon we could look down off to the east and see little bits of lights; I guess it was a village.
Anyway, the road ran right along the edge of a steep precipice with only a kind of a rough fence between. Pretty soon, Harry stopped the car. Skinny was fast asleep.
“Looks pretty bad ahead there, doesn’t it?” Harry said to the rest of us.
By the glare of the headlights I could see that for quite a long way ahead, the road was closer to the edge than it ought to be.
“There’s a strip of fence gone,” Harry said.
“I think the land has broken away there, that’s what I think,” I told him.
“Well, safety first,” he said; “guess we’d better investigate. It may be just the shadow that makes it look that way, but that road looks too blamed near the edge to suit me.”
“Safety first is right,” Grove said.
Harry was just starting to get out and I was just going to tell him that I’d go, when all of a sudden Pee-wee was outside the car, shouting “I’ll take a squint.” And before anyone else could get out, he was walking along the road ahead of us.
“Watch your step,” Harry called after him, “and don’t mistake a hole for a shadow.”
“Don’t you worry,” Pee-wee shouted back.
We could see him moving along very carefully.
“Don’t move the car,” he called back; “keep the lights still—just where they are.”
We all sat there waiting, and I remember just how Harry looked, leaning forward with his arms folded on the steering wheel. It was so still that I could hear Skinny breathing, asleep.
“Watch your step,” Harry called; “how about it?”
Pee-wee was out of sight now; he answered, but we couldn’t make out what he said. Then Harry called.
“All right? Shall we come ahead?”
That time there wasn’t any answer.
Grove said, “Did you hear a sound like a branch crackling?”
“It was the wind, I guess,” I said.
“How about it, Kiddo?” Harry shouted good and loud.
But there wasn’t any answer, and I felt kind of funny. While we waited, I could hear Skinny breathing in his sleep, all the while.
I guess Harry was good and scared. I know I was. He just said, “You kids wait here, I’ll be back.”
He got out and went along the road and we watched him in the glare of the lights and didn’t say anything to each other. I remember how Harry looked in the light—kind of as if he were covered with dust. We could hear him calling Pee-wee, but we couldn’t hear any answer. His voice sounded funny like, because we were so kind of excited, and it was so still all about. Away far off I could hear a train whistle.
Grove said, “What do you think that sound like a branch breaking was?”
“How doIknow?” I said. “Shh!”
“Shall we wake up the kid?” he asked me; “it makes me feel kind—oh, I don’t know—to hear him breathing.”
“Let the kid sleep,” I said.
Harry was gone out of sight now, and neither one of us spoke, just sat there, waiting. It kind of hurt me to breathe. Pretty soon he came back, walking straight along and not calling to us at all.
“There’s something the matter,” Grove said.
When Harry got to the car he said, awful short and funny sort of, “Get those tools out, Roy, quick. I’m afraid to take the car any farther than this in the dark. Get the storage battery out, Grove—come on,quick! I want to see if I can’t throw a light down the cliff up yonder.”
“Where’s Pee-wee?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said; “he isn’t up there. Quick!”
We loosened the connections as fast as we could and took the battery and one of the headlights and everything we needed, and followed Harry along the road. “Keep close behind me,” he said, “and step just where I step. Got the pincers?”
I was breathing kind of hard on account of there being a kind of lump in my throat, but I said, “Yop.”
“And the extra wiring?”
“I’ve got it,” Grove said.
He didn’t say anything more, and we kind of didn’t dare to speak to him. Pretty soon we came to a place where there was a part of the cliff broken away outside the fence, and Harry sat down on a rock and started connecting up the light.
“I don’t know if this blamed thing is going to work,” he said.
“If—if he should be down there,” Grove said; “could he be alive?”
Harry didn’t answer at all, he was so busy and worried.
“I can climb down,” I said, “if he’s there. He—he did me many a good turn, that’s one thing.”
“I can see him now, the way he was talking to Mrs. West,” Grove said.
“Here, stand this battery out of the way,” Harry said. “Look out you don’t trip over the wire. You boys keep back.”
“I’m not going to keep back,” I told him; “I want to see. If he’s down there, I’m going down. I know that. Who’s—who’s got a—a better right to know than we have——”
Harry didn’t say anything. It was only just that he was so worried and excited himself that he didn’t want us near the edge. He held the headlight down over the edge of the cliff and we could see a jumble of trees and rocks down there—away far down. Everything looked kind of gray.
“Look between those two rocks,” Harry said, awful quiet. His voice sounded funny and different. Grove just crept back and then stood up and I could hear him gulping there in the dark.
“It’s—it’s him,” I said to Harry.
“I was afraid of it,” Harry said. That was all he said. But I could see how the light moved and I knew he wasn’t holding it steady. Pee-wee was wedged in between two rocks away down far below us. There couldn’t be any mistake about it, because we could see his khaki suit plain.
“I’m going down,” I said; “maybe—maybe I jollied him a lot, but he was a scout—he was—I’m going down——” That’s just what I said.
Harry shook his head and just said, “It’s all over, Roy. This is terrible.”
“I’m going down anyway,” I said.
It wasn’t any use for Harry to say what I should do, and I guess he knew it. Mostly we did what he said and that was only right, I have to admit it.
But, anyway, nothing could have stopped me then.
“You can’t go down here,” Harry said.
“I’ll go up the road a ways,” I told him; “it isn’t so steep up farther.”
Harry told Grove to go back and stay in the car with Skinny and not let him get out. Grove went back, keeping to the inside edge of the road. I started along the road, looking for a place where I could climb down and Harry threw the light along ahead of me, but I had to go so far that pretty soon I was out of its reach.
“The cliff lower up that way?” he called after me.
“It isn’t so straight up,” I shouted back; “throw the light down where he is, so it will guide me when I get to the bottom.”
It wasn’t so hard scrambling down at the place I chose. I guess it was about five hundred feet further along from where Harry was, and about as far again from where the car was standing. The place wasn’t so steep and it wasn’t so high either, because the place where Harry was, was right about at the top of the hill. Only, one thing, it was mighty dark and blowing up windy, and while I was scrambling down I felt a drop of rain.
When I got to the bottom, I found it was all rough—rocky like—and it was hard to walk down. But, one thing, I could see the light good and plain. It looked just like a search-light, all straight and dusty, slanting down from the highest part of the cliff.
I called to Harry to ask him if it was pointed at the spot, but he didn’t answer me. I guess the wind was the other way, and besides, a voice carries up better than it carries down. Anyway, I knew he was up there on account of the light.
I started stumbling over rocks to get to the place where that shaft of light ended. It made one of those big rocks awful bright, but I couldn’t see the other rock, because it was behind it. And I couldn’t see the space between; I was kind of glad I couldn’t. But I knew I had to come to it.
All the while, I could sort of hear Pee-wee, the way he talked to Mrs. West, and I remembered how we always laughed at him. I guessed we’d go right back and I wondered how we’d fix—I mean what we’d do with him—anyway, we’d have to carry the body to a town and then telegraph. I said I wouldn’t want to be Harry to have to do that.
By now it was raining and blowing pretty hard. Two or three times I called up, but only once I could hear an answer, and even then I couldn’t make out what he said. I had to climb over rocks and big trunks and roots of trees that must have fallen down from above some time or other. It was pretty hard. All of a sudden, that shaft of light that I was following was gone and I stood there in the rain and it was pitch dark all around.
I shouted up to Harry at the top of my voice, and there was some kind of an answer, but I couldn’t make it out.
“What’s the matter?” I yelled. “Throw the light down. I can’t see.”
I heard a voice that seemed kind of as if it was far, far off somewhere, and I listened, trying to make it out. I wasn’t sure whether it was a voice or just the wind.
I called out, “What?” Gee, my head just throbbed from shouting so loud.
“K-i-i-l-ld, k-i-i-l-d.” That’s just what the voice seemed to say.
All of a sudden I stumbled over a rock and fell down in the pitch dark and knocked my head. For a second it made me see a bright light, but I knew it wasn’t real. I could feel my forehead was bleeding. My leg was hurt too, so I couldn’t get up. And my head just throbbed and throbbed and throbbed.
I called as loud as I could and it just made my head pound all the more.
I shouted, “Throw the light down here; I’m hurt!”
But the only answer I could hear was that voice saying “K-i-i-ild, k-i-i-ild——”