Pee Wee Harris on the Trail by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

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"I wonder how he did."

"Town hall," said Scoutmaster Ned; "that kid thinks quick. If he'd only
learn to tie a knot he'd be a scout. Vernon's a pretty good kid, though;
he's better than Mount Vernon anyway. Pull on your left a little, Bill.
What's the matter; got the sleeping sickness? Pull straight for that
light."

"If that wasn't a stunt, what is?" said Norris.

"You are," said Scoutmaster Ned. "We're not handing out silver cups
to-night. Maybe I'll do a stunt to-night and win it."

"You?"

"Yes, me. Pull on your left some more. What do you think this is, Bill;
a merry-go-round? Now go straight."

"Maybe Fido Norton found their prints," said Norris. "He's a bear at
that."

"He's clumsier than a bear, like all Safety First's troop. How about
that, Safety? Come on--_quick!_ Row!"

"Coming?" called a voice from the shore.

"That's what," answered Scoutmaster Ned.

"Your car's gone."

"So I read in the sky. Somebody break in?"

"The small door's locked, the big one was open but nothing broken."

"Get out!"

"Wait till you see. Who's there?"

"Safety First and Norris and me? You didn't think to get a car, did you?
Do you know which way they went?"

"Jim Burton is here with his Packard."

"Hello, Jim."

"Hello, Ned."

"They followed the main road past the east road. We tracked the tires
past Oppie's mill. They're not likely to turn out anywhere else, till
they get past Piper's anyway."

"You'll be a scout yet, Fido," called Scoutmaster Ned.

"What did they do, wake you up?" said Safety First as they pulled the
boat up on shore.

"I should think they did," said Jim Burton; "they rang the bell a
hundred times and went out into the garage and tooted the horn. Why
don't you teach your scouts manners?"

"Can't be did, Jim. Let's take a pike at the place. Hello Fido, that
you? You sure about them going as far as the mill?"

"Yop."

"Yop, hey? Well, that's not so bad. You'll get a second helping of
dessert some day. Come on, who's going? Pile in. Mighty good of you,
Jim."

A brief moment's inspection of the shed and they were off. Jim Burton
drove the car and by him sat Scoutmaster Ned. The others, Safety First,
Nick Vernon, Fido Norton and Charlie Norris, sat in back.

"Too many?" asked Scoutmaster Ned.

"She rides better with a load," said Jim Burton.

"I don't suppose there's much chance," said Ned. "You notified the
cops, didn't you, Nick? Good. The battery is low and there isn't any
crank on my bus and my only hope is that she'll lay down on them. Soak
it to her, Jim."

"Do you want to stop and look at the tire marks yourself?" asked Norton.
"It was that new Goodyear that I was tracking, the one that's all
crisscross."

"You tracked it past the East road? So they didn't turn down there?
Sure?"

"Yop."

"That's enough. Let's see her step, Jim."

Jim "soaked it to her" and she stepped. Not a bit of fuss did she make
over it. Just stepped. A silent, fleet step, like the step of a deer.
And the spectral trees on either side seemed to glide the other way, and
east road seemed like a piece of string across their path, and Oppie's
mill was but a transient speck and Valesboro was brushed aside like a
particle of dust.

The car of a thousand delights could not do that....

CHAPTER XXIX

VOICES

Pee-wee, the irrepressible, was subdued at last. In gaping amazement he
watched the Justice cross from the 'phone to the table, sit down, and
begin to write. The demeanor of the Justice was anything but dramatic;
he was calm, matter of fact, as if this were no more than he had
expected.

"What do you mean, it's--in--his garage?" Pee-wee stammered. He was not
at all defiant now. "Are you--were you talking--are you sure it was
him?"

There was a note of sincerity, of honest surprise, in his voice which
the Justice did not miss. And as for Peter Piper, his heart went out to
this poor, shabby, little misguided fellow, whoever and whatever he was.
He was so much at a disadvantage now, that Peter felt sorry for him.

"Now, sonny," said Justice Fee, breaking the tense silence, "I'm going
to hold you till we get to the bottom of this. Mr. Sanders, who's
constable, is going to look after you (Pee-wee gulped and fingered his
cap nervously) till we can overhaul that pal of yours. You're more to be
pitied than blamed I reckon. There's altogether too much of this using
small boys in criminal enterprises. I know," he added, holding up a
warning finger, "he told you just what to say if you were caught, and
you needn't say it, because, you see, I can't believe you."

Pee-wee was visibly sobbing now; he knew what "being taken care of"
meant. He was afraid, yes, and bewildered at being caught in this cruel
web of circumstance. But most of all he was incensed and shamed by this
indignity. He could not trust himself to speak, he would break down.
Something was wrong, _everything_ was wrong, fate was against him, he
could not grapple with the situation. If he spoke, he would say too much
and lose his temper in that solemn hall of justice. And what would
happen to him then?

His hands played nervously with his old cap, he bit his lips, and tried
to repress the torrent that was surging in him. The outlandish old gray
sweater with its rolling collar bulging up around his small, jerking
throat, did not seem comical now. It made him the picture of pathos. He
did not dare try to explain; that wonderful old man would only catch him
in another trap and perhaps send him to state prison. His breath came
quick and fast; he could no more speak than he could escape. He wished
that Roy Blakeley were there, and Tom Slade, who knew how to talk to
grown-up men and....

"Yes, and I'll pin the merit badge over your mouth if you don't keep
still," he heard a hearty voice say. "Sure, wintergreen is good to eat!
Go and eat some poison ivy for all I care. Do you think I'm going to be
passing out merit badges for helping me to find my own car?"

"I wonder where they went?"

"I should worry where they went; I'm thankful we found the car. Maybe
they've gone to join The Bandit of Harrowing Highway; he'll have pistols
enough to go around, anyway; seventy was it?"

"And a couple of blackjacks."

"Well, we've got him beaten for a romance of the road. Let's go in this
house and see if we can scare up some gasoline. Jim, you and I ought to
go into the movies--we'd have a six reeler called The Kids of Kidder
Lake or Fido of Frying-pan Island. How's that strike you? Most of those
kids don't need any pistols, they can kill time without them. We've got
some dead ones over there, Jim, only they haven't got sense enough to
lie down. What do you bet we don't get some gas in this house? Well,
here goes for a knock on the door by Ned the Nabber,--_one_ pistol."

Pee-wee held his breath, listening. What could this mean? Seventy
pistols? Blackjacks? His old friend, The Bandit of Harrowing Highway?
Dead ones? Was he indeed in the spell of some horrible nightmare? What
on earth could this mean?

In a kind of trance he heard a knocking on the door and a lot of hearty,
clamoring, bantering voices. They did not seem at all like robbers and
cut-throats. They were not stealthy--a couple of million miles from it.
Pee-wee rubbed his glistening eyes with that old cap that he held and
blinked to make sure he was awake.

CHAPTER XXX

FACE TO FACE

Still in a daze, Pee-wee saw the old man step to the door; he heard a
hearty, good-humored voice asking about gasoline. "If you could just put
us on the track of some," the voice said; "we're good at tracking."

Tracking! Pee-wee's eyes opened. Tracking?

"Well, could we use your 'phone, then?" he heard.

The next thing Pee-wee knew, half a dozen boys and young men spilled
into the room. All but one of them, and that was Jim Burton, were in
scout attire. Pee-wee stood gaping at them as if they had dropped from
the clouds.

Whatever their wee hour call meant they seemed all to be in high
good-humor and amused at their own adventure. One of them, a scoutmaster
as Pee-wee knew, was particularly offhand and jovial and seemed to fill
the room with his breezy talk. Peter Piper stared like one transfixed;
they were scouts, the kind he had read about, the kind that were on the
cover of the handbook! He backed into a corner so as not to get in their
way....

"Yes sir, we've had some night of it," said the young scoutmaster,
falling with mock weariness into a chair, throwing one knee over the
other and tossing his hat very neatly onto one foot. "My car is stalled
up the road in front of the next house. Lucky they ran out of gas.
There's a sign up there says, 'road closed,' but I can't see anything
the matter with it. Anyway, they ran out of gas and then ran out of the
machine as I make out. They deserted it when the supply gave out, I
suppose. All's well that ends well, only we need gas.

"I bet--I bet we've covered a hundred and fifty miles of territory
to-night; what d'you say, Bill?" He didn't pause long enough to give
Bill, or the Justice either, a chance to speak. "We saw the light in
your window and just came in to see if you had a gallon or so of gas.
We've got another car up yonder. Yes, sir, we've got The Bandit of
Harrowing Highway looking like a tame canary for adventures; hey Scout
Nick? Nick's our signal shark--"

Peter Piper looked at Nick with humble reverence, and backed farther
into the corner. He could not take his eyes from him.

Justice Fee was about to say, "Here is one of the culprits," but he did
not get the chance. Scoutmaster Ned had the floor, also the walls and
the ceiling. He seemed not to care anything about the culprits. All he
seemed to care about was getting his Hunkajunk car back and recounting
their adventures. Perhaps he was even a little grateful to the culprits
for affording them such opportunity for adventure. At all events, he
kicked his hat around on the end of his foot and filled the room with
his quick, breezy talk.

"Yes sir, we rode to Bridgeboro, New Jersey, got a prize cup for my
kindergarten class to try for, looked in at a show, saw a guy with a lot
of pistols, got home at about, oh I don't know--rowed over to the island
where we're camping, and these two kids rowed back to get the cup out of
the car, and found the car gone and sent a signal that nobody saw and we
came along in this fellow's Packard. Well, we've got the old Hunkajunk
back, anyway, haven't we kids? I'll say we have. These kids told the
world only the world was asleep or something. Well, we've had pretty
good luck at that, I'll say; we found the car, the school burned down--"

Suddenly, like a burst of thunder rose the recovered voice of Pee-wee
Harris, while in frantic accompaniment his feet beat the floor and his
small arms swung in wild excitement. With his deadly vocal artillery he
silenced the breezy talk of Scoutmaster Ned and set the company aghast
with his triumphant clamor.

"I've got an insulation--I mean an inspiration--listen--keep
still--everybody! I'm the one that--that fixed it so you could have all
those adventures--I'm the one--I got into the wrong car--in
Bridgeboro--I saw that show and I thought you were the ones that had
pistols and now I know that you're not murderers--because I was half
asleep and I came out because I hate educational films but I like
bandits, but I don't like real ones--"

"He likes _reel_ ones," suggested Safety First.

"--And I met a thief and he was disguised as a manual training teacher
and now he's foiled because I asked him to help me take Mr. Bartlett's
car back and it's already back, because this is a different car and I
was under--I was disguised under the buffalo robe--and I wrote a letter
under there and pinned it to a piece of sandwich with a safety pin that
I was being kidnapped--you can ask anybody so that shows I'm not a
bandit and I can prove I'm a scout--I don't care what anybody says
because you can hang an apple on a string and I can bite it without
touching it with my hands, and I'm the only one in my patrol that can do
that and I'm not an enemy to you because if that school burned down I'm
glad too and I've got seven merit badges and the bronze cross and if you
find that letter I wrote you can see how that piece of sandwich fits my
mouth where I bit it and that's better than finger-prints and I can
prove it--I don't care what anybody says--I got into the wrong car and
even the smartest man in the world--even--even--even George Washington
could do that. I've got seven merit badges," he concluded breathlessly
as a climax to his outburst.

With an air of profound solemnity Scoutmaster Ned arose and made the
full scout salute to the mascot of the Raven Patrol, F.B.T. B.S.A. "May
I ask the name of the hero who was disguised as my buffalo robe?" he
asked.

"Pee-wee Harris, only size doesn't count," said the scream of
Bridgeboro's crack troop.

"Quite so," said Scoutmaster Ned; "George Washington might have been
small once himself. Am I right, Nick?"

"Positively," said Nick.

"And the manual training bandit? May I ask about him?"

"He's _foiled_," said Pee-wee. "I met him when I escaped from your
garage; he gave me a lead pencil and he said he'd help me take the car
back to Mr. Bartlett that took me to the show in his car. Gee whiz, you
get sleepy sometimes, don't you?"

"Very, but I don't get a chance to sleep much with bronze cross scouts
and manual training teachers to keep me on the move."

"Gee whiz, I'm sorry I woke you up."

"Not at all, the pleasure is mine," said Scoutmaster Ned. "I live in a
den of wild Indians; I seldom sleep. And our friend escaped? It doesn't
speak very well for teachers, does it? School--"

"Gee whiz, I'll help anybody to foil a school."

"Good. Come over here, Pee-wee Harris, and let us get at the details of
this adventure; I have a hunch that you and I are going to be friends.
You are a--what shall I say?--a bandit after my own heart. So you have
seven merit badges and the bronze cross, eh? Do you think you could
steal--excuse me--_win_ a silver cup?"

"Can you drink out of it?" Pee-wee demanded.

"Positively--lemonade, grape juice, root beer--"

"Malted milk also. And a sandwich goes with it. I think that cup was
made for a bronze cross scout. Come over here a minute."

Pee-wee went over and stood between the knees of Scoutmaster Ned. "He's
mine, Bill," said Ned to his fellow scoutmaster, "I saw him first."

Meanwhile you should have seen the face of Justice of the Peace Fee. He
sat at his desk, with his long legs projecting through the middle, a
cigar screwed away over into the corner of his mouth, contemplating
Pee-wee with a shrewd, amused twinkle. Not a word did he say as
Scoutmaster Ned asked questions of the Raven's mascot, while the others
listened and laughed.

CHAPTER XXXI

ALONE

But there was one there who smiled almost fearfully, as if doubting his
privilege of mirth in that gay, strange company. He smiled, not as one
of them, but in silent awe, and did not dare to laugh aloud. He hoped
that they would not notice him and tell him to go home. He had dreamed
of some day seeing such wondrous boys as these, and here they were
before him, all about him, in their natty khaki, self-possessed,
unabashed, merry, free. Was not that enough for Peter Piper of Piper's
Crossroads?

Yes, that was enough, more than he had ever expected. It was like the
scene he had "pretended" out in the little barn when he had presented
himself with the fancied signalling badge.

Stealthily his hand moved to his ticking shirt and removed the campaign
button. For there before him was a boy with a real, a _real_, signalling
badge. His eyes were riveted upon that badge; he could not take them
from it. Suppose someone should ask him about the button; why he was
wearing it now that Harding and Coolidge were in office? He would blush,
he could not tell them.

He hoped that they would not notice him for he knew he could not talk to
them, that his voice would shake and that he would go to pieces. Now
that he saw them, joyous, uproarious, bantering, wearing badges on their
sleeves, he realized that what _he_ had done was nothing at all. He
heard Scoutmaster Ned humorously belittling the exploits of his own
heroes. No, Peter Piper would not step rashly into that bantering throng
with that one exploit of his own.

So he stood in the bay window, half concealed by the old-fashioned
melodeon, and watched them. Just gazed at them....

And when they all crowded out he lingered behind and whispered to the
music-master of the milk cans, "Don't tell them, Ham; please don't tell
them anything--about me."

And so the party made their way along the dark road and Peter followed
and heard the flattering comments and fraternal plans involving the
little hero from Bridgeboro. Evidently they were going to keep Scout
Harris with them and have him patented, from what Peter overheard.

When they came to Peter's little home, Scoutmaster Ned discovered and
spoke to him while Pee-wee was making an enthusiastic pronouncement
about Jim Burton's Packard car.

"You live here, sonny?"

"Y--yes, sir," stammered Peter, quite taken aback.

"Well, now, I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to roll
this stalled car a little way into your yard to get it off the road. All
right?"

"Y--yes, sir."

"Then we're going on to where that little fellow lives. I have to see
his folks and he has to get some scout duds and junk and stuff and then
we're coming back. We ought to be here early in the morning."

"Y--yes, sir."

"You just keep your eye out for that car, will you? It has a way of
disappearing."

"Y--yes, sir."

"I don't mean to watch it all the time, but just sort of have an eye
out. I'm taking this little jigger out of the distributer, so no one
could run the old bus anyway. But you just have an eye out, will you?"

"Y--yes, sir," said Peter anxiously.

"That's the boy, and some fine day you'll have a couple of autos of your
own to worry about."

Peter smiled bashfully, happily. That was a wonderful joke. And a real
scoutmaster, just like the pictures, had said it to _him_. He thought
that, with the exception of Theodore Roosevelt, Scoutmaster Ned was the
most wonderful scout that ever lived. He wondered how it would seem to
know him all the time. Peter had no idea what a distributer was, but he
knew now that _his_ method of crippling an automobile was very crude. He
was glad they did not know so they could not laugh at him....

After the Packard car, with its noisy load, had started for that fairy
region where they had movie shows and things and where Scout Harris
lived, Peter was beset by an awful problem. He was not sleepy, he would
not be sleepy for at least a year after what he had seen, and he
intended to watch the car as it should be watched. The question that
puzzled him was whether he dared get into it or whether he had better
sit on the old carriage step. He finally compromised by sitting on the
running board. And there he sat till the owl stopped shrieking and the
first pale herald of the dawn appeared in the sky.

And when the sun peaked over the top of Graveyard Hill and painted the
tombstones below with its fresh new light and showed the gray frost of
the autumn morning spread over the lonesome, bleak fields, and finally
cast its cheery light upon the tiny, isolated home, it found Peter
Piper, pioneer scout, of Piper's Crossroads, seated there upon the
running board of Scoutmaster Ned's car, waiting for one more glimpse of
those heroes....

CHAPTER XXXII

ON TO BRIDGEBORO

Scoutmaster Ned Garrison had a middle name. Handling parents, that was
his middle name. He was a bear at that. He could make them eat out of
his hand. Had he not engineered the camping enterprise pending the
preparation of a makeshift school? Parents did not trouble him, he ate
them alive.

"You leave them to me," he said to Pee-wee as they advanced against poor
defenseless Bridgeboro. "They'll either consent or we'll shoot up the
town, hey, Safety First? We're on the rampage to-night; somebody's been
feeding us meat."

It was not Pee-wee's custom to leave a thing to somebody else. He
attended to everything--meals, awards, hikes, ice cream cones, camping
localities, duffel lists, parents, everything. He was the world's
champion fixer. You can see for yourselves what a triumph he made of not
rescuing the wrong car. That was merely a detail. If the car had been
the right one and no one had stopped him from rescuing it he would have
rescued it. Since everything worked out all right, he was triumphant.
And he was better than glue for fixing things.

"I'll handle them," he said.

"Well, well both handle them," said Scoutmaster Ned.

A little farther along the road Safety First said, "I don't see why the
road was closed off. It seems to me to be all right."

Pee-wee was now sufficiently subdued to think and speak calmly, and he
said, "That feller with the shirt put it there; he said he read the
signal. I guess he's crazy, hey?"

"Oh, the fellow with the shirt?" queried Fido Norton, humorously.

"I seem to remember a shirt," said Nick.

"That was it," Pee-wee said.

"He was just a little rube," said Charlie Norris.

"He's the one that said I was a thief," said Pee-wee. "I told him I
could prove I was a scout by eating a potato a certain way."

"And be didn't take you up?" said Scoutmaster Ned.

"He didn't have a potato," Pee-wee said.

"It's best always to carry potatoes with you," said Scoutmaster Safety
First.

"After this I'm always going to carry five or six," said Pee-wee.

"The proof of the potatoes is in the eating," said Nick.

"I know nine different ways to cook them," said Pee-wee; "and I can eat
them raw so that makes ten. I can eat potato skins too, so that makes
eleven."

"If you could eat potato-bugs that would make twelve," said Charlie
Norris.

"If you eat lightning bugs, that will make you bright," said Pee-wee;
"that's what Roy Blakeley says; he's in my troop. He's crazy and he says
he's glad of it. We've got three patrols in my troop and I'm a member of
the Ravens but I'm kind of in all of them. I know all about camping and
everything. In the fall you're supposed to camp east of a hill, do you
know why?"

"No, break it to us gently," said Nick.

"When you said _break it_, that reminded me that I can break an apple
into halves with one hand."

"Do tell," said Charlie; "what do you do with the other half?"

"What other half?"

"The other one."

"If they're both the same how can there be another one? I eat them."

"Really?"

"I eat mushrooms too, only if they're toad-stools they kill you."

"Why don't you eat a couple?"

"I _will_ not, because you bet I'm going to stay alive. I'll show you
how you can tell the difference when we get to that island. I'll show
you a lot of things. Do you know how to pump water with a
newspaper--rolled up? Gee, that's easy, I learned that when I was a
tenderfoot."

"What are you now, a second hand scout?"

"I'm a first class scout and I'm a first aid scout and--Do you know how
to make things out of peanut shells?"

"Will you show us that, too?"

"Sure, but anyway I never use chalk for scout signs; I use charred wood.
Do you know why?"

"Because chalk reminds you of school?"

"Because it's got too much civilization in it."

"Do they put that in it?"

"No, but it's there. Gee whiz, I've got no use for civilization, I don't
care what kind it is."

"Well, what about that codger?" asked Scoutmaster Ned. "He said he read
the signal?"

"Sure, and he was the one that stopped us when that fellow ran away. Gee
whiz, I didn't see any signal but I didn't look behind. Maybe he's just
disguised as a rube, hey? Anyway, he stopped us, that's one sure thing,
because we stopped and that proves it, doesn't it?"

"There's nothing the matter with the road," Safety First repeated.

"That's what has me guessing," said Scoutmaster Ned. "He couldn't have
read the message, that little codger. He's just a poor, little country
kid. I'd give a doughnut to know how he happened to put that rope across
the road. He never, _never_ read that message, you can bet on that."

"I know! I know!" vociferated Pee-wee. "He had a--a--inspiration. Give
me the doughnut."

CHAPTER XXXIII

HARK! THE CONQUERING HERO COMES BACK

We need not linger in Bridgeboro, the native haunt of Scout Harris, and
of Roy Blakeley and his Silver-plated Fox Patrol, and the other
celebrities of Pee-wee's troop. For the adventures of these world heroes
may be found recorded by Roy's own hand.

It will be sufficient to say that the delegation from Kidder Lake
descended upon the peaceful home of Pee-wee Harris (peaceful during his
absence at all events) and carried it by storm. The anxiety of Mr. and
Mrs. Harris over the whereabouts of their son being set at rest by his
dramatic appearance at the head of his martial following, there was
nothing for them to do but surrender to Scoutmaster Ned, while the party
partook of breakfast in the fallen fortress.

"He will eat you out of house and home," warned Mrs. Harris; "I only
want to warn you beforehand."

"We are prepared for the worst," said Scoutmaster Ned, as he
contemplated his discovery wrestling with a saucer of breakfast food
across the table. "In return for our poor hospitality he is going to
show us how the world should be run, and we are to be his pupils. Now
that we have stumbled upon him we couldn't close our season without
him."

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