Pee Wee Harris on the Trail by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

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Aghast at his own inspiration and boldness, he stood behind the car,
shaking all over, as he heard the precious fuel running away in a steady
stream and pattering on the road. Well, he would take the consequences
of this decisive act. From the moment he had seen those glaring
headlights and realized that he was participating in a reality, he had
been frantic, wondering what to do. Well, now he had "gone and done it"
and he was terror-stricken at his own act. The mere wasting of so much
gasoline was a terrible thing in the homely life of poor Peter.

He paused behind the car listening. He had not the courage to go
forward. He listened as the liquid fuel flowed away and trickled over
the spare tire-rack, and his beating heart seemed to keep time with it.

Ah, you Hunkajunk touring model with all your thousand delights, you
cannot get along without this trickling liquid any better than your
lowly brother, the humble Ford. Would _all_ of it flow away before that
terrible man came back?

Now Peter heard voices in front of the car; the man had returned, and
was speaking to his confederate, his pal.

"I won't get out of the car and I won't desert it," he heard the small
stranger announce sturdily.

"Didn't you say you were with me?"

"I did, but I--"

"Then shut up. The road's all right; there's nothing the matter with it;
this is some kind of a frame-up. Did you come along this way when you
copped it before; I mean you and that pair?"

"I don't know, I was under the buffalo robe."

They were thieves all right; Peter knew it now. And his assurance on
this point gave him courage. The strangers would be no safer to deal
with, but at least Peter knew now that he had the right on his side. In
a sudden burst of impulsive resolution he stepped around and in a spirit
of utter recklessness spoke up. His own voice sounded strange to him.

"I--I know what you are--you're thieves," he said. "I can--I can tell by
the way you talk--and--and you--you can't take the car--even an inch you
can't--because all the gasoline is gone out of it and I did it and I
don't care--and you--you can _kill_ me if you want to only you can't
take the car. And--and--pretty soon Ham Sanders will be along with the
milk cans and he's not afraid of you--"

"What did you say about ham?" Pee-wee shouted down at him.

"Ham Sanders," Peter called back defiantly.

"I though you said ham sandwich," Pee-wee retorted.

"He can--he's even--he can even handle a bull," shouted Peter, carried
away by excitement. "All the--the--gasoline is gone--it is--because now
I can hear it stop dripping--so--now--_now_ what are you going to do?
So?"

CHAPTER XXIV

DESERTED

Mr. Swiper lost no time upon hearing Peter's startling announcement.
Rushing to the back of the car he confirmed the information by a
frantically hurried inspection, keeping up a running fire of curses the
while. For a manual training teacher he was singularly profane.

Nor did he tarry to administer any corporeal rebukes, more than to send
poor Peter reeling as he brushed him aside with imprecations in his
flight. Since the auto had been so generously handed to him by a kind
boy scout, perhaps the loss of it was not such a shock as it might
otherwise have been. There were other autos.

Mr. Swiper saved himself and that was his chief concern. He was not
going to take any chances with Ham Sanders. In the last few miles of
their inglorious journey, Pee-wee had been trouble enough to him and how
to get rid of that redoubtable youngster had been a question. So Mr.
Swiper paused not to make an issue of Peter Piper's audacious act. He
withdrew into the shelter of the woods and in the fullness of time to
the more secure shelter of an Illinois penitentiary where he was entered
under the name of Chick Swiper, alias Chick the Speeder, alias Chick the
Gent, alias the Car King, alias Jack Skidder--perhaps because he was so
slippery.

In his official pedigree there was nothing about his being a manual
training teacher, though he must have had some knowledge of the use of
tools for he removed the bars from his cell window with praiseworthy
skill, and was later caught in Michigan, I think.

So there sat Pee-wee glaring down upon Peter, still frightened at
himself for the stir that he had made in the great world.

"You foiled him," said Pee-wee. "Do you know what? He was a thief; he
was stealing this auto."

"Yes, and you're a thief too," said Peter, removing the lantern from the
rope and holding it up toward the auto. He was quite brave and
collected now. "And if you want to run you'd better do it before
anybody comes, that's what I'll tell you. You're--you're dressed up just
like a thief; I can tell. Anyway, you can't take the auto."

"Do you call me a thief?" shouted Pee-wee. "That shows how much you
know; I'm a boy scout. Do you think scouts steal things? That shows how
much you know about logic."

"You're a thief, you can't fool me," Peter retorted courageously. "Look
at the way you look. I'm not scared of you, either--or him either."

"How can I look at the way I look?" Pee-wee fairly screamed at him.
"You're crazy! I told him where it was and I told him--"

"That shows you're just as bad as he is," Peter insisted. "Are you going
to stay here till Ham Sanders comes and be arrested? Anyhow, you're
arrested now," he ventured, "and you have to wait."

"You tell me I'm arrested?" Pee-wee yelled. "When I'm taking this car
back to its owner? Do you know what a boy scout is?"

"I know what they look like, they're all dressed up in uniforms," poor
Peter said, "but you can be one without that."

"Now you see, you said so yourself," Pee-wee began.

"But they don't get dressed like thieves," Peter retorted.

"I'm on your side because you stopped him," shouted Scout Harris.

"I don't want you on my side," said Peter. "I'm a scout and I don't want
any--any--robbers on my side."

"You?" said Pee-wee.

"Yes, me."

"I bet you don't even know--I bet you don't even know--how many--how
many--"

"That shows you don't know anything about scouts at all," said Peter.
"I've got a book that tells all about it and when a man comes you're
going to get arrested."

"_Me arrested_?"

"Yes you--you helped him to steal it and I don't believe anything you
say and you needn't think you can fool me. If you were a scout you
wouldn't be scared to run away in the woods now."

"I've been--I've been--I--you're crazy," shouted Pee-wee, fairly
bursting with indignation. "I--I've been lost in the woods more times
than you have."

"Scouts don't get lost," said Peter.

"They get lost so they can find their way," Pee-wee yelled. "That shows
how much you know. If scouts didn't get lost how could scouts rescue
them? You _have_ to get lost. The same as you have to get nearly
drowned. Do you want me to start a fire without a match? That'll show
you I'm a scout--only I'd have to have a certain kind of a stone. I
can--I can eat a potato from a stick without it going round; that'll
prove it. Have you got a roasted potato?"

"No, and I wouldn't give one to a feller that steals automobiles
either," said Peter. "I got a signal and I stopped you."

"I know all about signalling and you didn't get one either," Pee-wee
shouted in desperation; "I know all about everything about scouting. I
know--I know--I can prove I can drink out of a spring without the water
going up my nose, so that's a test. I had a lot of adventures to-night,
I was with thieves, and I'll tell you all--"

"I know you were," said Peter, "and you needn't tell me about it because
I can tell by looking at you. Do you think you can make me think you own
this car, and--and get roasted potatoes from me too, and run away when I
show you where the spring is so you can prove it?"

"The man that owns this car is a friend of mine and he--he gave me a
quarter--"

"You're a thief and I don't care what you say," said Peter, his
agitation rising with his anger, "and it's miles and miles to a village
and there's nothing but woods--"

"Scouts can eat moss, they can," Pee-wee interrupted.

"And you can't fool me," Peter continued.

"I'll go scout pace for you," Pee-wee said with a sudden inspiration--

"Yes, you'll go scout pacing away--"

"_Will you let me speak_?" Pee-wee fairly screeched.

"No, I won't. You're a robber and now you're caught and it serves you
right because you didn't find out about the scouts and join them and
have fun that way and then you wouldn't have to go to jail for
stealing."

W. Harris, mascot of the Raven Patrol, First Bridgeboro Troop, looked
down with withering scorn upon this shabby advocate of scouting. And
Peter Piper returned the look fearfully, yet bravely. After the
tremendous thing he had done he was not going to be fooled by this
hoodlum crook who seemed to have haphazard knowledge of those wonderful,
far-off beings in natty khaki and shining things hanging from their
belts. He would not even discuss those misty, unknown comrades with this
lawbreaker. Anybody might learn a little about the scouts, even a thief.

"You don't know anything about them," he said, holding up his head as if
proudly claiming brotherhood with those distant heroes in their rich,
wonderful attire; "I won't talk about them. Because I know about them
even--even if they don't know _me_. They sent me a message; they didn't
know, but they did it just the same. So I belong too. You can make
believe you have a uniform--you can. You can be miles and miles and
miles and miles--"

He paused and listened. Down the road, in the still night, sounded the
gentle melody of clanking milk cans mingled with the pensive strains of
loose and squeaking wheels. It was the melodious orchestra which always
heralded the approach of Ham Sanders who was so strong that he could
handle a bull.

"Do you think I'm scared?" said Pee-wee.

Evidently he was not.

CHAPTER XXV

BEDLAM

That Pee-wee Harris, the only original boy scout, positively guaranteed,
should be pronounced _not_ a scout! Why that was like saying that water
was not wet or (to use a more fitting comparison) that mince pie was not
good.

To say that Pee-wee Harris was in the scouts would not be saying enough.
Rather should it be said that the scouts were all in Pee-wee Harris. The
Scout movement had not swallowed _him_, he had swallowed it, the same as
he swallowed everything else. He had swallowed it whole. He was the boy
scout just as much as Uncle Sam is the United States, except that he was
much greater and more terrible than Uncle Sam. Oh, much. He was just as
much a boy scout as the Fourth of July is a noise. Except that he was
more of a noise.

And here was a shabby, eager-faced boy, with pantaloons like stovepipes
almost reaching his ankles and a ticking shirt with a pattern like a
checker-board; a quaint, queer youngster, living a million miles from
nowhere, telling him that he was no scout, that he was a thief.

"Hey, mister," Pee-wee shouted to Ham Sanders who drove up, "I'm
rescuing this automobile from two men that stole it and I got another
one to help me and he was trying to steal it and it belongs to a man I
know where I live and I was at the movies with him, and that feller said
he'd take it back and this feller says I'm a thief and I'm good and
hungry."

Ham Sanders gave one look at him and said, "Oh, is that so?"

"It's more than so," Pee-wee shouted, "and I'm going to stick to this
automobile, I don't care what. If you say I'm not a scout I can prove
it."

"You needn't go far to prove it," said Ham; "we can see you're not.
Maybe you're pretty wide awake--"

"I'm not, I'm sleepy," Pee-wee shouted. "Have you got anything to say
around here?"

"Well, I _think_ I have, I'm constable," said Ham.

"Then why aren't you sure?" Pee-wee retorted. "Just because I don't
know where I am it doesn't say I don't know what I'm talking about, does
it? Will you help me drive this automobile back? You'll get some money
if you do. I had an adventure with a couple of thieves and I foiled
them; they've got seventy pistols. I was watching The Bandit of
Harrowing Highway--"

"You got into bad company, youngster," said Ham, surveying Pee-wee's
rakish cap and lawless looking sweater. "You ought to be thankful you
got a chance to get rid of that sort o' company. You're kinder young, I
reckon, ain't you? Gosh, I calculate you ain't more'n four foot high.
Kinder young to be mixed up in stealings."

"You're the one that's mixed up," Pee-wee shouted, "and anyway size
doesn't count. You can--you can steal things if you're--you're only a
foot high--if you want to and--"

"How about all this, Peter?" asked his friend confidentially.

"I'll tell you," Pee-wee shouted; "I had a lot of adventures, I know two
men that have, _shh_, they have _dead ones to their credit_! I
circum--what d'you call it--vented them, and that man that just ran
away, he was a traitor, but I can--"

"Can you keep still a second? One look at you is enough," said Ham
Sanders.

"I've--I've got--three scout suits," Pee-wee began.

"Like enough you stole 'em," said Ham. "You're one of them runners for
crooks, that's what you are. I know the kind; they have you to climb in
the windows for 'em and all that. Now you keep still a minute if you
know what's best for you."

In a brief and threatened few moments of silence Peter told in a whisper
how he had seen the signal and read it and stopped the car, and of the
flight of the head thief, as he called him. Between these two excited
youngsters Ham hardly knew what to believe. He certainly did not believe
in talking lights appearing over graveyards. Nor did he credit Pee-wee's
vehement and choppy account of bandits with seventy pistols.

"Whar are these here dead ones?" he asked, rather confused. "Over yonder
in the graveyard?"

"How do I know where they are?" Pee-wee shouted. "Do you know what
blackjacks are?"

"Dots and dashes, you can do it with lights too," said Peter; "they
tell the truth. If he says signals lie that shows he isn't a scout
anyway, and anybody can see he isn't. I stopped them, I did it by
myself."

"That's nothing," Pee-wee shouted from the seat, "I nearly got
suffocated, I'm more of a hero than you are. That man that ran away
he--he--_duped_ me. This car--will you listen--this car--"

"It's stolen; _I_ know," said Peter.

"It _was_ stolen but it _isn't_ stolen," Pee-wee fairly screamed. "Can't
a thing be stolen and then not stolen? It's being--being rescued--"

"It's being stolen, the other thief ran away," Peter persisted. "He--he
admits he was friends with a thief! He's a thief too, he is."

"Maybe Jim disguised--kind of--as a thief," Pee-wee conceded.

"He's trying to be disguised as a scout," poor Peter said.

"I was a scout before you or anybody else was born," Pee-wee shouted.

"He isn't," said Peter.

"I am," said Pee-wee.

Ham Sanders scratched his head, looking from one to the other, then
looked appealingly at his familiar milk cans. Perhaps he expected to see
them dancing around in this Bedlam.

"I'm gonter hev both of you youngsters before the peace justice," he
finally said; "we'll soon find out what's wrong here. Climb down out o'
that car, you, and come along with me, the both of you."

"Do you think I'm scared of him?" Pee-wee demanded as he climbed down.

"You _will_ be scared of him, he's got a big book," said Peter.

"I ain't scared of big books," Pee-wee announced; "I know bigger books,
camp registers; I bet it isn't as big as a map book."

"You'll see," said Peter, darkly.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CULPRIT AT THE BAR

The book could not have been so very big, for Justice of the Peace Fee
lived in a very small house. It was almost concealed among trees fifty
yards or so up the road.

Justice Fee was one of those shrewd, easy-going, stern but good-natured,
lawyers that one meets away off in the country. He was altogether
removed from that obnoxious thing, the small town lawyer. Up in the edge
of his gray hair rested a pair of spectacles, with octagon shaped
lenses, almost completely camouflaged by his grizzled locks. These
spectacles were seldom where they belonged, on his nose.

Apparently he wore them; to bed, for after several minutes of knocking
by the visitors, he appeared with them on, the while groping for the
sleeve of an old coat he had partly donned. He took the callers into a
room with a desk in the middle of it and sat down at this, facing them,
his legs sticking out through the space in the middle. Then he opened
the large book as if making ready to close somebody up in it as one
presses a flower.

He contemplated Pee-wee with a rather curious frown as he listened to
what Ham and then Peter (greatly agitated) had to say.

Our young hero, indeed, presented anything but a creditable picture. The
old gray sweater used by the man who took care of the furnace in
Pee-wee's home, the cap which he held, and his grimy face, made him look
like a terrible example of hoodlumism; a trolley-car hoodlum, an
apple-stealing and stone-throwing and hooky-playing hoodlum; a
hole-in-the-ball-field-fence hoodlum. Nor did the terrible scowl with
which he now challenged fate and the world help to make him look like
the boy on the cover of the scout manual; the boy that Peter knew and
worshipped.

"Well now," drawled Peace Justice Fee, casting a tolerant side glance at
Pee-wee, "you tell me this whole business and you tell me the _plain
truth_. See?"

"Sure I will," Pee-wee said; "I'll tell you all my adventures--"

"Never mind about your adventures, and watch out, because the first lie
you tell--" The justice held up a warning finger. "Now answer me this,
never mind anything else; we'll drop a plumb-line right down to the
bottom of this thing and have no beating round the bush--"

"I beat lots of bushes for rabbits," Pee-wee vociferated.

"Well, don't beat any here. Now" (the justice spoke slowly and
emphatically, shaking a long finger with each word),
"_who--owns--that--car_? Careful now."

"Mr. Bartlett, where I live--in Bridgeboro."

"Sure of that?"

"Sure I'm sure; didn't I--"

"Never mind what you did. Now what's this Mr. Bartlett's full name?
Now--_now!_" he added warningly, "just you answer the question I ask you
and leave the rest to me. If you tell the truth you won't get in any
trouble."

Pee-wee, somewhat awed, at last subsided. "Mr. James Bartlett," he said.

[Illustration: PEE-WEE BEFORE THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.]

Without another word, Mr. Fee drew in his long legs, arose, went over
to where a book was hanging, looked in it, then took the receiver from
the old-fashioned box telephone on the wall. The party waited, greatly
awed by this show of calm efficiency, and ability to get right at the
heart of the matter. Pee-wee was particularly elated, for presently his
identity and whereabouts would be established and explained. He
listened, with growing interest as the justice, unperturbed by delays
and mistakes, finally succeeded in securing the desired number.

"This two-four-eight-Bridgeboro?" Pee-wee heard. "Sorry to get you up at
this hour. You Mr. James Bartlett? Yes. This is the peace justice
at--What? I say this is the peace justice--peace--yes this is the peace
justice--_justice of the peace_--at Piper's Crossroads, Noo York State.
What? Yes. Noo York State. Pipes? No _Piper's_--Piper's Crossroads. Was
your automobile stolen? Your automobile. What? I say was your auto--"

"Sure it was stolen," Pee-wee said; "you just mention--"

"Keep still. I say--was your automobile stolen--_STOLEN_? Well, it's
for your sake--what's that? All right."

There followed a pause. Justice Fee waited but did not address the
company. A dead silence reigned. They could hear the ticking of the big
grandfather's clock in the corner. Peter thought that signalling was
better than this. Ham thought how wonderful it was for a man to have so
much "book learning" that he could go right to the heart of a matter
like this. Pee-wee thought how, in about ten seconds, he would be able
to denounce these strangers, and appear as the real hero that he was. He
would ignore Peter Piper entirely and give Justice Fee an edifying
lecture on scouting. In about ten seconds they would all see....

"What's that?" said the justice, busy at the 'phone. "Your car is in
your garage? I say--what's that? Oh, you looked? Sure about that, eh?
Yes--yes--yes. You haven't got two cars? Six cars? Oh, six cylinders.
No--no.... It's all safe in your garage, you say? Yes. Well, sorry to
trouble you. No, not at all. Yes. All right. Good-bye."

Peter Piper looked at Pee-wee with a kind of awe. He had seen the other
thief escape in the darkness; everything had been exciting and confused.
But now, in the lamplight and within the safety of those four walls he
beheld a real crook, caught, cornered, at bay.

Justice Fee had simplified the whole thing, talking little, depending on
hard, cold facts. He had hit the vital spot of the whole mysterious
business. He had caught this little hoodlum satellite of thieves in an
ugly lie. Yet Peter Piper, who had in him the makings of a real scout,
was not happy. He had thought that he would be happy, but now he was
not.

"If--if you'll--maybe--if I could take him to my house," he began,
twitching his fingers nervously as he gazed wistfully at the Justice who
embodied the relentless law, "if you'd let me do that he couldn't run
away, it's so far, and he said he was hungry and--and anyway there isn't
anything to steal at my house."

That was better than reading the signal. And Peter Piper, pioneer scout
of Piper's Crossroads was a better scout than he knew....

CHAPTER XXVII

SOME NOISE

There was one place where the searchlight message was translated with a
readier skill than at Piper's Crossroads, and where it created quite as
great consternation. That was at the camp on Frying-pan Island. It was
like A.B.C. to half a dozen of those practiced scouts, and to others not
so well practiced, for the skill of the sender had made the reading
easy. In less than a minute the camp was the scene of hurried talk and
lightning preparation.

"What do you know about that?" asked Sparrow Blake. He was in the
Mammoth Patrol, made up of the smaller scouts in Safety First's troop.

"I don't know _anything_ about it," said Scoutmaster Ned, reaching for
his plaited khaki jacket; "I don't know any more about it than you do.
Nobody could get in that place, so I don't see how anyone could get out.
Come ahead, Bill," he added hastily, addressing the other scoutmaster.
This was followed by a vociferous chorus.

"Can I go?"

"I'm with you."

"I'll row."

"No you won't, _I_ will."

"You mean me."

"Get from under and go back to bed," said Scoutmaster Ned, excitedly.
"What do you fellows think this is; a regatta?"

"Aren't we going to chase them?"

"You're going to chase yourselves. Do you think we've got a battleship?
We've only got one of the boats here. Chuck me that leather case--"

"Your pistol?"

"Never you mind what's in it. Come ahead, Bill, and you Norris, and look
out you don't step in the soup bucket. Is there a light over on shore?"

"Sure, they've got a lantern; trust Nick not to forget anything."

"I'm going so as to carry the lantern."

"Yes, you're not," said Scoutmaster Ned; "never mind your coat, Bill,
come ahead. I hope they had sense enough to get hold of a machine
somewhere. They could get Barney's flivver."

"Shall we signal over to them?" called a dozen excited voices.

"No, there isn't time. Come on now, _hustle_, and the rest of you go to
sleep."

"While you're chasing thieves? Did you hear what he said? Go to sleep!
Can you beat that, from a scoutmaster! And him always telling us to be
wide awake."

"Get out of the way, all of you," said Scoutmaster Bill, alias Safety
First. "You're like a lot oh mosquitoes."

The whole camp followed the two scoutmasters and Norris to the shore,
where there seemed likely to be a stampede for the one small boat.

"If you're going to take Norris--"

"Norris can drive the other car back if I get mine," interrupted
Scoutmaster Ned. "He has a license; now are you all satisfied?"

They saw that under his persistent good nature he was worried and
preoccupied, and like the good scouts they were, they said no more about
going. They knew the pride he took in his Hunkajunk auto. They knew
that his one thought was of that now.

Yet Scoutmaster Ned Garrison's sense of humor was ever ready, even in
anxiety or disappointment. It was that which endeared him to his troop,
whom he was forever denouncing and contemplating with a kind of mock
despair. He called them an infernal rabble and they loved him for it. He
was a new kind of a scoutmaster. And I honestly believe that when
Scoutmaster Ned thrust that leather case containing his revolver down
into his pocket, if he could only have known that it was for the purpose
of shooting Pee-wee Harris, he would have laughed so hard that he would
have capsized the rowboat.

CHAPTER XXVIII

ON THE TRAIL

The boat glided swiftly through the dark water.

"Nick will get the silver cup for that stunt," said Norris.

"He'll get a punch in the eye if he doesn't have a car for us," said
Scoutmaster Ned.

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