Pee-Wee Harris on the Trail, Page 3

  Out of the exhaust pipe in back poured the fatal volume of gaseoussmoke which spells death, horrible and suffocating, when locked andbarred doors and windowless walls enclose the wretched, gasping victimas in a tomb.

  CHAPTER X

  A RACE WITH DEATH

  In close confinement it is all over in a minute in these cases. Thevictim is poisoned and suffocated like a rat in a hole. Surprising as itmay seem, this deadly poison works faster than its victim can act. Andwith darkness for its ally the only hope lies in presence of mind andquick action.

  Pee-wee Harris was a scout. Laugh at him and make fun of him as youwill, he was a scout. He was at once the littlest scout and the biggestscout that ever scouting had known. He boasted and bungled, but out ofhis bungling came triumph. He fell, oh such falls as he fell! But healways landed right side up. He could save the world with a blunder. Andthen boast of the blunder.

  He was not a motorist, he was a scout. Wrong or right (and he wasusually wrong), he was a scout. He was a scout with something leftover. Like a flash of lightning he jumped into the car and shut off theswitch, but the imprisoned air was already heavy with the deadly fumesand his head swam. Shutting off the switch would not save him; nothingwould save him unless his mind and body acted together with lightningswiftness.

  Say that he made a "bull" of it in starting the engine, and you arewelcome to say that of him. But after that the spirit and training ofthe scout possessed him. _You_, with all respect to you, would have dieda frightful death in that black prison.

  Pee-wee Harris, scout, tore his handkerchief from around his cut finger,unscrewed the cap of the radiator, dipped his handkerchief into thehole, bit off two small pieces of the warm, dripping cloth, and stuffedthem into his ears. The wet handkerchief he stuffed into his mouth. Andso Scout Harris gained a few precious moments, _only a few_, in which tomake a desperate effort to find a way out!

  You would have forgotten about the radiator full of water, I daresay....

  Roy Blakeley (Silver Fox Patrol and not in this story, thank goodness)said, long after these adventures were over, that a handkerchief stuffedin Pee-wee's mouth was a good idea and that it was a pity it had beenremoved. But Pee-wee Harris was a scout, he was a couple of scouts, andhe saved his life by scout law and knowledge. And there you are.

  Acting quickly he now groped his way around to the rear of the car. Itwas odd how quickly his mind worked in his desperate predicament. Hiseyes stung and his throat pained him and he knew that he had won onlythe chance of a race with death. But what more does a scout want than afighting chance? His wits, spurred by the emergency, were now alert andhe recalled that the men who had stolen the car had rolled one door shutand slammed another. So perhaps the rolling door had been barred inside.Where the small door was he did not know, and there was no time now tomake a groping exploration of the sides. The rolling door must be inback of the car, he knew that.

  He was dizzy now and on the point of falling. His wrists tingled and hishead ached acutely. Only his towering resolve kept him on his feet.

  Groping from behind the car he touched the boards and felt along themfor some indication of the door. Presently his hand came upon an ironband set in a large staple through which was inserted a huge woodenplug. This he pulled out and hauling on the staple slowly rolled open agreat wide door.

  A fresh gust of autumn wind blew in upon him, a cleansing and refreshingrestorative, as if it had been waiting without to welcome the sturdylittle scout into the vast, fragrant woods which he loved. And thebright stars shone overhead, and the air was laden with the pungentscent of autumn. It seemed as if all Nature, solemn and companionable,was there to greet the little mascot of the Raven Patrol, FirstBridgeboro Troop, B.S.A.

  The car of a thousand delights had so far afforded very few delights toPee-wee Harris.

  CHAPTER XI

  A RURAL PARADISE

  Pee-wee looked about him at an enchanted scene. He seemed to have beentransported to a region made to order for the Boy Scouts of America.That a pair of auto thieves should have brought him to this ruralParadise seemed odd enough.

  As he gazed about and looked up at the quiet star-studded sky his fearswere all but dispelled. For were not the friendly woods and water nearhim? They seemed like rescuing allies now. In the soft, enveloping armsof those silent woods he would find safety and shelter, and so he shouldfind his way home through their dim concealment.

  The building in which the car had been left was an old weather-beatenshack, which, judging from the sawdust all about, might once have beenused as an ice-house. This seemed likely, for it stood near the shore ofa placid lake in the black bosom of which shone a myriad of invertedstars and through which was a golden path of flickering moonlight. Theice-house, or whatever it was, had never been painted and the grain stoodout on the shrunken wood like veins in an aged hand.

  At a respectable distance from the woods near the shore where Pee-weestood was a sizable village, or young town, big enough to have trafficsigns and parking zones and a main street and a movie show and such likepretentious things. Between this town and the shore were a few outlyinghouses, but mostly sparse woodland. To the north the woods were thicker.

  The lights of this neighboring town formed a cheery background to thedark, silent lake shore. This town was West Ketchem and the chiefsensation in West Ketchem during the last few years had been thedestruction by fire of the public school, a calamity for which every boywent in mourning.

  Across the lake, Pee-wee could see other and fewer lights. Thesebelonged to a smaller village in which nothing at all had ever happened,not even the burning of its school. Far from it. The school stood therein all its glory, under the able supervision of Barnabas Wise andBirchel Rodney, the local board of education.

  About in the center of the lake, Pee-wee saw a small red light.Sometimes there seemed to be two lights, but he thought that one was thereflection of the other in the water. The light seemed very lonely, yetvery inviting out there. He supposed it was on a boat Perhaps some onewas fishing....

  But in all this surrounding beauty and peacefulness, Pee-wee saw no signof the murder of any captive maiden. His eagle eye _did_ see where aboat had been drawn up on shore, and if any "shoves" and other cruel andabusive "handling" had been administered by those scoundrels withseventy pistols, it must have been to that poor defenseless boat. Orperhaps they were out in the middle of the lake at that very minutesinking their victim.

  Anything might happen--in the mind of Scout Harris.

  CHAPTER XII

  ENTER THE GENUINE ARTICLE

  At another time Pee-wee would have delighted to linger in this scout'sUtopia. But his chief thought now was to take advantage of his fortunateescape. He had not the faintest idea where he was, more than that he wasa full two hour's ride from home. That would be a long and lonely hike,even if he could find his way in the darkness.

  He tried to recall the names of the various lakes in New Jersey and inthe neighboring state of New York, and he recalled a good many, but thatdid not help him to identify this one. So he started up toward the townin the hope of identifying that.

  The village petered out toward the lake; there were but a few houses. Itwas about eleven or twelve o'clock or after and the good people in thestraggling cottages thereabout had put out their lights and retired toslumber before that wicked hour.

  There was a stillness and gloom about these uninviting, dark houses; acheerlessness not to be found in the densest woods. They made Pee-weefeel lost and lonesome, as the dim, silent wilderness could never do.

  Soon he reached the town, and there in the center of a spacious lawn wassomething which, in his loneliness and uncertainty, seemed the pictureof gloom. The ruin of a building which had been burned to the ground.What a fire that must have been to witness! Better far than The Banditof Harrowing Highway! Over a partly fallen arch, under which manyreluctant feet had passed, Pee-wee could just make out the graven words:WEST KETCHEM PUBLIC SCHOOL.

  West Ketchem. So th
at was where he was. But he had never heard of WestKetchem. The fame of this lakeside metropolis had not penetrated tosurging Bridgeboro. At least it had' not penetrated to the surging mindof Scout Harris. He tried to recall West Ketchem on the map of NewJersey in his school geography.

  But evidently West Ketchem had scorned the geography. Or else thegeography had scorned West Ketchem.

  Undecided what to do, Pee-wee lingered a few moments among the mass ofcharred timbers, and desks ruined and laid, low, and broken blackboards,all in an indiscriminate heap.

  "I bet the fellers that live here are glad," he said to himself. "Thatisn't saying they have to believe in fires, except camp-fires, butanyway after it's all over they've got a right to be glad."

  The situation of the school seemed to have been a sort of compromisebetween the claims of the lake and the claims of the town. It was nottoo far from the town and not too far from the lake. Perhaps it had beenbuilt within sight of the lake so that the West Ketchem student bodycould see it while at their lessons. A kind of slow torture.

  Pee-wee had never before seen the familiar realities of school life thusbrought low and lying in inglorious disorder at his feet. It gave him afeeling of triumph and had a fascination for him. Damp smelling bookswere here and there among the ruins, histories, arithmetics, algebrasand grammars. He could tread upon these with his valiant heel. A hugeroll call book (ah, how well he knew it even in the darkness) laycharred and soggy near the assembly-room piano. Junk heaps had alwayshad a fascination for Pee-wee and had yielded up some of his raresttreasures. But a school, with all its disciplinary claptrap reduced to ajunk heap! He could not, even in this late hour and strange country,tear himself away from it.

  But another influence caused him to hesitate. What should he do? Therewere hardly any lights in the town now. He was a scout and he could notreconcile himself to the commonplace device of going to someone's houseand asking for shelter. His scout training had taught him self-relianceand resource, and here was the chance to apply them, to go home, to findhis way without anyone's help. The lonely road called to him more thanthe dark houses did.

  But how about the car? Mr. Bartlett's stolen car? Would it be the way ofa scout to go home and tell about that? He had come in the car,Providence had made him its guardian, and he would take it back againand say, (or words to this effect) "Here is your super six Hunkajunkcar, Mr. Bartlett; they tried to steal it but I _foiled_ them! I wasdisguised as a buffalo robe."

  There was only one difficulty in the way of this heroic course and thatwas that he could not run the car. Never again would he touch one ofthose frightful nickel things on the instrument board. So, wishing tohandle this harrowing situation alone, with true scout prowess andresource, he kicked around among the ruins of that tyrannous and fallenempire, and tried to devise some plan.

  Suddenly he heard a sound near him. He paused in the darkness, his scoutheel upon a poor, defenseless crumpled spelling book. Thus he stood inmingled triumph and agitation, his heart beating fast, every nerve onedge.

  "Who--who's there?" he said.

  He moved again, and was startled as his foot slipped off the charredtimber on which he was walking. The brisk autumn wind was playing havocamong the debris, blowing damp pages over faster than anyone could turnthem. It played among a burned chest of old examination papers.scattering them like dried leaves. Correct or incorrect, they were allthe same now. Pee-wee liked this roving, unruly wind, having its own wayin that dominion of restriction. He liked its gay disregard of all thissolemn claptrap.

  But now he heard clearly the sound of footsteps among the ruins,footsteps picking their way as it seemed to him, through the uncertainsupport of all that various disorder. Groping, careful footfalls.

  "Who's there?" he asked. And the only answer was a gust of wind.

  Could it be those thieves in search of him? Or might it be the ghost ofsome principal or teacher lingering still among these remnants andreminders of authority?

  Step, step--step.

  Then from around the corner of a charred, up-ended platform appeared aface. A face with a cap drawn low over it. And presently a dark formemerged.

  "Who--who are--you?" Pee-wee stammered.

  "I'm a teacher as was here," the stranger said. "You needn't be scaredof me, kiddo."

  "I was just kind of looking around," Pee-wee explained apologetically.

  "Here's a pencil fur yer," the stranger said. "I jes' picked it up."

  Pee-wee accepted this as a flag of truce, and felt somewhat reassured. Aman who would give him a pencil surely meant no harm. He had as muchright to be there as Pee-wee had.

  "If you were a teacher here I shouldn't think you'd say 'as was,'"Pee-wee ventured, "But gee whiz," he added, "I don't care how you sayit." No teacher had ever before called him kiddo and he rather liked it."Maybe you taught manual training, hey?" Pee-wee said. "Because they'rekind of different."

  "There's where you hit it," said the stranger.

  "Manual training?"

  "Right the first time, and I'm just sort of collecting some of my junk."

  "That's one thing about me, I'm good at guessing," Pee-wee said. "Ikinder knew you were that. Manual training, that's my favorite studybecause it isn't a study at all. I made a bird-house, I did, in manualtraining, a dandy big one."

  "Bird-houses is a good thing to make," said the manual trainingteacher.

  Pee-wee could not see his new acquaintance very well or the bundle whichhe carried. If the teacher had been after his junk he seemed to havebeen fortunate in finding it, for he had collected a considerable amountof booty. Indeed, he had but a minute before succeeded in disinterringthe safe which had been in the principal's office, but here he had metwith disappointment. He had, however, hit upon a microscope of somevalue from the equipment of the student laboratory and he had found alady's handbag which he seemed to think worth keeping.

  "What are _you_ doing here?" he asked of Pee-wee.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A FRIEND IN NEED

  "Do you want me to let you into a secret?" Pee-wee said. "I know wherethere's a stolen automobile. Maybe you'd like to help me take it back toits owner, hey? If you do you'll get an honourable mention in ourtroop-book. I was carried away in it by two thieves who didn't know Iwas in the car, because I was disguised, sort of, under the buffalorobe. Do you want to help me foil them?"

  The manual training teacher seemed interested but a bit incredulous. Helooked Pee-wee over and said, "what's all this?"

  "Maybe you don't believe me but it's true," Pee-wee said. "Do you knowhow to run a car?"

  "Anything from a flivver up," said the stranger.

  "Shh," said Pee-wee, "this one is away, way up. It's a super sixHunkajunk, it belongs to a man where I live, in Bridgeboro, New Jersey."

  "Well, what are you doing here?" the manual training teacher asked.

  "I was kind of kidnapped accidentally. They did it but they didn't knowit. They've got pistols and blackjacks and things and I heard them talkabout stealing. I bet I'd have heard a lot more only my head was underthe buffalo robe. If you'll help me we can circum--what do you callit--you know--circum--"

  The teacher did not know. But his interest was aroused at this whisperedtale of armed bandits and of a big stolen car. Pee-wee completed thetale in breathless excitement. He told all, from the beginning. "Theylocked it in," he concluded, "and went away; but one of the doors, thebig one, was locked on the inside and I opened it. Anybody can take thecar out. Those men have gone away across the lake. If you'll drive it toBridgeboro you can stay at my house and have breakfast and I'll tell Mr.Bartlett that you helped me, and gee whiz, they'll thank, you a lot.Maybe you know about scouts because manual training teachers know a lotabout scouts on account of scouts making bird-houses and all things likethat, and so maybe you know about good turns. That'll be a peach of agood turn. And if I tell about it you'll get a kind of a medal from ourtroop with your name on it. What's your name? Mine's Walter Harris, butthe fellows in my troop call me Pee-
wee, but I should worry about them.Will you help me? What's your name?"

  "Mr. Swiper," said the stranger, rather thoughtfully; "let's go and lookit over."

  He was certainly considering the proposition and Pee-wee accompanied himback to the lake, keeping up a running fire of enthusiasticencouragement and representing to him the delight and self-satisfactionof circumventing a pair of scoundrels. "They've got pistols andeverything," he said as a clincher, "and if they'd steal a car they'dkill somebody, wouldn't they?"

  "Seventy pistols is a good many," said Mr. Swiper, incredulously.

  "Sure it is," said Pee-wee excitedly; "it's more than Jesse James had. Iguess they belong to a big band of thieves, hey? Maybe they've gota--a--a haunt on the other side of that lake, hay? Now you can see it'sgood to go to the movies, hey? Because we could never circum--foil themif I hadn't, hey? They drove it right away from in front of the theater.Anyway," he added excitedly as he trotted along, "I'm glad I met youbecause now I don't have to wake up the police or anything, hey? And Ibet Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett will be surprised when they see us bringing itback, won't they? I'll show you where we have our meetings."

  Mr. Swiper was not carried off his feet by Pee-wee's excited talk. Hewas thoughtful and preoccupied.

  "That's one thing I have no use for--thieves," Pee-wee said. "Gee whiz,I never took a ride with thieves before. But anyway it's going to be allright now. We'll just toot the horn in front of the house when we getthere, hey? And I'll say--I'll say--'Here's your car Mr. Bartlett.' Andthen I'll introduce you to him, hey? And I bet he'll--anyway, youwouldn't take anything, would you? Money or anything like that?"