Pee Wee Harris on the Trail by Percy Keese Fitzhugh
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Percy Keese Fitzhugh >> Pee Wee Harris on the Trail
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Having cast this last message out upon the road he withdrew his arm
cautiously back under the robe and lay as nearly motionless as possible,
prepared for the worst.
If he should never be heard of again, it would seem both touching and
appropriate, that this memento of him should be a morsel of food (which
he loved) fastened with a safety pin which was the weapon that he always
carried.
[Illustration: [Handwritten note] I am being kidnapped by thieves who
are stealing Mr. Bartlett's car. I don know where I am. If anybody find
this please take it to my house Bridgeboro Walter Harris Scout Br]
CHAPTER VII
LOCKED DOORS
Like the ground-hog, Pee-wee did not emerge again until the occasion was
more propitious. For fully an hour the car ran at high speed which
afforded him some hope that the strong arm of the law might intervene.
But the strong arm of the law was apparently under its pillow in
delicious slumber. Not a snag did those bloody fugitives encounter in
their flight.
At last the car slowed down and Pee-wee could feel that it was turning
into another road. His unwitting captors were evidently either nervous
or sleepy, for they talked but little.
The car proceeded slowly now, and when our hero ventured to steal a
quick glimpse from under his covering he perceived that they were going
along a road so dark and narrow that it seemed like a leafy tunnel. The
somber darkness and utter silence of this sequestered region made the
deed of these outlaws seem all the blacker. There was now no doubt
whatever of the criminal nature of their bold enterprise. For surely no
law-abiding, civilized beings lived in such a remote wilderness as now
closed them in.
Soon the car came to a stop, and Pee-wee's thumping heart almost came to
a stop at the same time. Suppose they should lift the robe? What would
they do? And quite as much to the point, what should _he_ do? A sudden
impulse to throw off his kindly camouflage and run for all he was worth,
seized him. But he thought of those seventy pistols and two blackjacks
and refrained. Should he face them boldly, like the hero in a story book
and say, "Ha, ha, you are foiled. The eyes of the scout have followed
you in your flight and you are caught!"
No he would not do that. A scout is supposed to be cautious. He would
remain under the buffalo robe.
Presently he heard the unmistakable sound and felt the unmistakable
feeling of the car being run into some sort of a shelter. The voices of
the thieves sounded different, more hollow, as voices heard in small
quarters indoors. A little suggestion of an echo to them.
Pee-wee Harris, scout, did not know where he was or what was going on,
but he _felt_ that four walls surrounded him. The plot was growing
thicker. And it was suffocating under that heavy robe, now that there
was no free air blowing about it.
"Where's the stuff?" one of the men asked.
"On the back seat," said the other.
Pee-wee trembled.
"Oh, no, I guess it's on the floor," the man added, "I think I put the
silver cup under the back seat--"
Pee-wee shuddered. So they had been stealing silver cups.
"Either there or--oh, here it is."
Pee-wee breathed again.
Then he heard no more voices. But he heard other sounds. He heard the
creaking of a heavy rolling door. He heard a sound as if it were being
bolted or fastened on the inside. Then he heard the slamming of another
door and a muffled, metallic sound as of someone locking it on the
outside. Then he heard footsteps, fainter, fainter.... Then he heard a
sound which seemed to him familiar. He could not liken it to anything in
particular, but it sounded familiar, a kind of clanking, metallic sound.
Then he heard a voice say, "Let me handle her, give her a shove, hold
her down, that's right."
Pee-wee's blood ran cold. They were killing someone out there; some poor
captive maiden, perhaps....
Then he heard no more.
CHAPTER VIII
A DISCOVERY
The ominous sound of doors rolling and of clanking staples and padlocks
told Pee-wee all too conclusively that he was a prisoner, and he was
seized with panic terror at the thought of being locked in a dungeon
where he could hardly see his hand before his face.
As to where he was, he had no guess more than that he was miles and
miles from home. But along with his fright came a feeling of relief that
he was no longer in company of those two scoundrels who were unwittingly
responsible for his predicament. They would probably not return before
morning and he would have at least a little breathing spell in which to
consider what he should do, if indeed he could do anything.
The departure of his captors gave him courage and some measure of hope.
Freedom he did not hope for, but a brief respite from peril was his.
Time, time! What the doomed crave and pray for. That, at least was his.
He had presence of mind enough to refrain from making any sound, for the
thieves might still be in the neighborhood for all he knew. The last he
had heard of them they had been talking of "handling her" and "giving
her a shove" and he did not want them to come back and "handle" _him_.
So he sat on the rear seat of the big Hunkajunk car ready to withdraw
beneath the robe at the first sound of approaching footsteps. If he had
been free to make a companionable noise, to whistle or to hum, or to
listen to the friendly sound of his own movements he would have felt
less frightened. But the need of absolute silence in that dark prison
agitated him, and in the ghostly stillness every creak made the place
seem haunted.
If he could only have seen where he was! He knew now something of the
insane terrors of dark and solitary confinement. So strongly did this
terror hold him that for a minute or two he dared not stir upon the seat
for fear of causing the least sound which the darkness and strangeness
of the place might conjure into spectral voices.
There is but one way to dispel these horrors and that is by throwing
them off with quick movement and practical resolve.
He jumped down out of the car, and groping his way through the darkness
stumbled against a wall. Moving his hand along this he found it to be of
rough boards. Indeed, he had a more conclusive proof of this by the fact
that a large splinter of the dried wood pierced his finger, paining
acutely. He pulled it out and sucked the bleeding cut, then wound his
handkerchief around it. One discovery, at least, he had made; the
building, whatever it was, was old. The smell of the board sides
informed him of that much. And there was no flooring.
He now stood thinking, wondering what he should do next. And as he
paused he heard a sound near him. A sound as of quick, low breathing. In
the open such a sound would not have been audible, but in the ghostly
darkness of that strange prison he could hear it clearly when he
listened. Sometimes he could distinguish the momentary pauses between
the breaths and sometimes the faint sound seemed continuous. As he
listened in silent, awful terror, the thumping of his heart seemed to
interrupt the steady, low sound.
It was not normal breathing surely, but it was the sound of breathing.
He was certain of that. He thought it was over near the car.
CHAPTER IX
THE TENTH CASE
The thought that there was a living presence in that spooky dungeon
struck terror to Pee-wee's very soul. He could not bring himself to
move, much less to speak. But he could not stand idly where he was, and
if he should stumble over a human form in that unknown blackness....
What could be more appalling than that? Was this uncanny place a prison
for poor, injured captives? Was there, lying just a few feet from him,
some suffering victim of those scoundrels? What did it mean? Pee-wee
could only stand, listening in growing fear and agitation.
"Who's there?" he finally asked, and his own trembling voice seemed
strange to him.
There was no answer.
"Who's there?" he asked again.
Silence; only the low, steady sound; punctuated, as it seemed by his own
heart beats.
"Who--is--is anybody there?"
Then, suddenly, in a kind of abandon, he cast off his fears and groped
his way with hands before him toward the low sound. Presently his hand
was upon something round and small. It had a kind of tube running from
it. He felt about this and touched something else. He felt along it; it
was smooth and continuous.
And then he knew, and he experienced infinite relief. His hand was upon
the spare tire on the rear of the car. The air was slowly escaping in
irregular jerks from the valve of this tire, making that low sound, now
hardly audible, now clearer and steadier, that escaping air will
sometimes cause when passing through a leaky valve. The darkness and
Pee-wee's own thumping heart had contributed to the horrible illusion
and he smiled in the utter relief which he experienced by the discovery.
But one other discovery he had made also which gave him an inspiration
and made him feel foolish that he had not had the inspiration before.
The little round thing that he had felt in about the center of the tire
was the red tail light of the car; he realized that now. And this
discovery reminded him that he could have all the light he wanted by the
mere touching of a switch.
"That shows how stupid I am," said Pee-wee. He was so relieved and
elated that he could afford to be generous with self accusations. "One
thing sure, it shows how when you hunt for a thing you find something
else, so if you're mistaken it's a good thing."
This was logical, surely, and he now proceeded to avail himself of the
benefit of his chance discovery. Presently this dank, mysterious, spooky
dungeon would be bathed in welcome light. Pee-wee climbed into the front
seat and moved his hand across the array of nickel dials and buttons on
the instrument board. There seemed to be a veritable multitude of little
handles and indicators for the control of the Hunkajunk super six
touring model. Not even a wireless apparatus, with which Pee-wee's
scouting experience had made him familiar, had such a variety of shiny
little odds and ends.
Having no knowledge of these things he moved his hand among them
cautiously, fearful lest some inadvertent touch might cause the car to
go careering into the board wall. He bent his head close to the
instrument board in search of printed words indicating the purpose of
the various buttons, but the darkness was too dense for him to see
anything but the shiny nickel. At the same time his wandering foot,
conducting an exploration of its own, came against a little knob.
Pee-wee never knew precisely what he did to cause the startling
occurrence which followed. There were two switch buttons, side by side,
and in one a small key had been left. Evidently he decided that this was
the lighting switch. He was just able to decipher the word IGNITION
above it. But alas, the word ignition means SPARK on an auto.
Whether he purposely, in curiosity, stepped on the button in the floor
he never knew. In nine cases out of ten it would have required more
effort to start the Hunkajunk touring model. But this was the tenth
case. In a frantic effort to stop the power, or perhaps in groping with
his hand, he pulled down the spark lever, and the six cylinder brute of
an engine awoke to life!
Out of the exhaust pipe in back poured the fatal volume of gaseous
smoke which spells death, horrible and suffocating, when locked and
barred doors and windowless walls enclose the wretched, gasping victim
as in a tomb.
CHAPTER X
A RACE WITH DEATH
In close confinement it is all over in a minute in these cases. The
victim is poisoned and suffocated like a rat in a hole. Surprising as it
may seem, this deadly poison works faster than its victim can act. And
with darkness for its ally the only hope lies in presence of mind and
quick action.
Pee-wee Harris was a scout. Laugh at him and make fun of him as you
will, he was a scout. He was at once the littlest scout and the biggest
scout that ever scouting had known. He boasted and bungled, but out of
his bungling came triumph. He fell, oh such falls as he fell! But he
always landed right side up. He could save the world with a blunder. And
then boast of the blunder.
He was not a motorist, he was a scout. Wrong or right (and he was
usually wrong), he was a scout. He was a scout with something left
over. Like a flash of lightning he jumped into the car and shut off the
switch, but the imprisoned air was already heavy with the deadly fumes
and his head swam. Shutting off the switch would not save him; nothing
would save him unless his mind and body acted together with lightning
swiftness.
Say that he made a "bull" of it in starting the engine, and you are
welcome to say that of him. But after that the spirit and training of
the scout possessed him. _You_, with all respect to you, would have died
a 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 the
hole, bit off two small pieces of the warm, dripping cloth, and stuffed
them into his ears. The wet handkerchief he stuffed into his mouth. And
so Scout Harris gained a few precious moments, _only a few_, in which to
make a desperate effort to find a way out!
You would have forgotten about the radiator full of water, I dare
say....
Roy Blakeley (Silver Fox Patrol and not in this story, thank goodness)
said, long after these adventures were over, that a handkerchief stuffed
in Pee-wee's mouth was a good idea and that it was a pity it had been
removed. But Pee-wee Harris was a scout, he was a couple of scouts, and
he 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. It
was odd how quickly his mind worked in his desperate predicament. His
eyes stung and his throat pained him and he knew that he had won only
the chance of a race with death. But what more does a scout want than a
fighting chance? His wits, spurred by the emergency, were now alert and
he recalled that the men who had stolen the car had rolled one door shut
and 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 to
make a groping exploration of the sides. The rolling door must be in
back of the car, he knew that.
He was dizzy now and on the point of falling. His wrists tingled and his
head ached acutely. Only his towering resolve kept him on his feet.
Groping from behind the car he touched the boards and felt along them
for some indication of the door. Presently his hand came upon an iron
band set in a large staple through which was inserted a huge wooden
plug. This he pulled out and hauling on the staple slowly rolled open a
great wide door.
A fresh gust of autumn wind blew in upon him, a cleansing and refreshing
restorative, as if it had been waiting without to welcome the sturdy
little scout into the vast, fragrant woods which he loved. And the
bright stars shone overhead, and the air was laden with the pungent
scent of autumn. It seemed as if all Nature, solemn and companionable,
was there to greet the little mascot of the Raven Patrol, First
Bridgeboro Troop, B.S.A.
The car of a thousand delights had so far afforded very few delights to
Pee-wee Harris.
CHAPTER XI
A RURAL PARADISE
Pee-wee looked about him at an enchanted scene. He seemed to have been
transported to a region made to order for the Boy Scouts of America.
That a pair of auto thieves should have brought him to this rural
Paradise seemed odd enough.
As he gazed about and looked up at the quiet star-studded sky his fears
were all but dispelled. For were not the friendly woods and water near
him? They seemed like rescuing allies now. In the soft, enveloping arms
of those silent woods he would find safety and shelter, and so he should
find his way home through their dim concealment.
The building in which the car had been left was an old weather-beaten
shack, which, judging from the sawdust all about, might once have been
used as an ice-house. This seemed likely, for it stood near the shore of
a placid lake in the black bosom of which shone a myriad of inverted
stars and through which was a golden path of flickering moonlight. The
ice-house, or whatever it was, had never been painted and the grain stood
out on the shrunken wood like veins in an aged hand.
At a respectable distance from the woods near the shore where Pee-wee
stood was a sizable village, or young town, big enough to have traffic
signs and parking zones and a main street and a movie show and such like
pretentious things. Between this town and the shore were a few outlying
houses, but mostly sparse woodland. To the north the woods were thicker.
The lights of this neighboring town formed a cheery background to the
dark, silent lake shore. This town was West Ketchem and the chief
sensation in West Ketchem during the last few years had been the
destruction by fire of the public school, a calamity for which every boy
went in mourning.
Across the lake, Pee-wee could see other and fewer lights. These
belonged 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 there
in all its glory, under the able supervision of Barnabas Wise and
Birchel 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 the
reflection of the other in the water. The light seemed very lonely, yet
very inviting out there. He supposed it was on a boat Perhaps some one
was fishing....
But in all this surrounding beauty and peacefulness, Pee-wee saw no sign
of the murder of any captive maiden. His eagle eye _did_ see where a
boat had been drawn up on shore, and if any "shoves" and other cruel and
abusive "handling" had been administered by those scoundrels with
seventy pistols, it must have been to that poor defenseless boat. Or
perhaps they were out in the middle of the lake at that very minute
sinking 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's
Utopia. But his chief thought now was to take advantage of his fortunate
escape. He had not the faintest idea where he was, more than that he was
a 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 in
the neighboring state of New York, and he recalled a good many, but that
did not help him to identify this one. So he started up toward the town
in the hope of identifying that.
The village petered out toward the lake; there were but a few houses. It
was about eleven or twelve o'clock or after and the good people in the
straggling cottages thereabout had put out their lights and retired to
slumber before that wicked hour.
There was a stillness and gloom about these uninviting, dark houses; a
cheerlessness not to be found in the densest woods. They made Pee-wee
feel 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 was
something which, in his loneliness and uncertainty, seemed the picture
of 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 Bandit
of Harrowing Highway! Over a partly fallen arch, under which many
reluctant feet had passed, Pee-wee could just make out the graven words:
WEST KETCHEM PUBLIC SCHOOL.
West Ketchem. So that was where he was. But he had never heard of West
Ketchem. The fame of this lakeside metropolis had not penetrated to
surging Bridgeboro. At least it had' not penetrated to the surging mind
of Scout Harris. He tried to recall West Ketchem on the map of New
Jersey in his school geography.
But evidently West Ketchem had scorned the geography. Or else the
geography had scorned West Ketchem.
Undecided what to do, Pee-wee lingered a few moments among the mass of
charred 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. "That
isn't saying they have to believe in fires, except camp-fires, but
anyway 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 compromise
between the claims of the lake and the claims of the town. It was not
too far from the town and not too far from the lake. Perhaps it had been
built within sight of the lake so that the West Ketchem student body
could see it while at their lessons. A kind of slow torture.
Pee-wee had never before seen the familiar realities of school life thus
brought low and lying in inglorious disorder at his feet. It gave him a
feeling of triumph and had a fascination for him. Damp smelling books
were here and there among the ruins, histories, arithmetics, algebras
and grammars. He could tread upon these with his valiant heel. A huge
roll call book (ah, how well he knew it even in the darkness) lay
charred and soggy near the assembly-room piano. Junk heaps had always
had a fascination for Pee-wee and had yielded up some of his rarest
treasures. But a school, with all its disciplinary claptrap reduced to a
junk 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? There
were hardly any lights in the town now. He was a scout and he could not
reconcile himself to the commonplace device of going to someone's house
and asking for shelter. His scout training had taught him self-reliance
and resource, and here was the chance to apply them, to go home, to find
his way without anyone's help. The lonely road called to him more than
the dark houses did.
But how about the car? Mr. Bartlett's stolen car? Would it be the way of
a 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 again
and say, (or words to this effect) "Here is your super six Hunkajunk
car, Mr. Bartlett; they tried to steal it but I _foiled_ them! I was
disguised as a buffalo robe."
There was only one difficulty in the way of this heroic course and that
was that he could not run the car. Never again would he touch one of
those frightful nickel things on the instrument board. So, wishing to
handle this harrowing situation alone, with true scout prowess and
resource, he kicked around among the ruins of that tyrannous and fallen
empire, and tried to devise some plan.
Suddenly he heard a sound near him. He paused in the darkness, his scout
heel upon a poor, defenseless crumpled spelling book. Thus he stood in
mingled triumph and agitation, his heart beating fast, every nerve on
edge.
"Who--who's there?" he said.
He moved again, and was startled as his foot slipped off the charred
timber on which he was walking. The brisk autumn wind was playing havoc
among the debris, blowing damp pages over faster than anyone could turn
them. It played among a burned chest of old examination papers.
scattering them like dried leaves. Correct or incorrect, they were all
the same now. Pee-wee liked this roving, unruly wind, having its own way
in that dominion of restriction. He liked its gay disregard of all this
solemn claptrap.
But now he heard clearly the sound of footsteps among the ruins,
footsteps picking their way as it seemed to him, through the uncertain
support 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 of
some principal or teacher lingering still among these remnants and
reminders of authority?
Step, step--step.
Then from around the corner of a charred, up-ended platform appeared a
face. A face with a cap drawn low over it. And presently a dark form
emerged.
"Who--who are--you?" Pee-wee stammered.
"I'm a teacher as was here," the stranger said. "You needn't be scared
of 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. A
man who would give him a pencil surely meant no harm. He had as much
right 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 say
it." No teacher had ever before called him kiddo and he rather liked it.
"Maybe you taught manual training, hey?" Pee-wee said. "Because they're
kind 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."
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