Pee-Wee Harris on the Trail

鏜
Harris on the Trail, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

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Title: Pee-Wee Harris on the Trail
Author: Percy Keese Fitzhugh
Release Date: May 2, 2005 [EBook #15750]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Angela Anderson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

[Illustration: "WHO--WHO ARE--YOU?" PEE-WEE STAMMERED.]

PEE-WEE HARRIS ON THE TRAIL
BY PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH
Author of
THE TOM SLADE BOOKS, THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS
ILLUSTRATED BY H. S BARBOUR
Published with the approval of THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America

CONTENTS
I THE LONE FIGURE 1
II A PATHETIC SIGHT 5
III THREE GOOD TURNS 9
IV THE FIVE REELER 15
V R-R-R-ROBBERS! 20
VI A MESSAGE IN THE DARK 24
VII LOCKED DOORS 28
VIII A DISCOVERY 32
IX THE TENTH CASE 36
X A RACE WITH DEATH 41
XI A RURAL PARADISE 45
XII ENTER THE GENUINE ARTICLE 48
XIII A FRIEND IN NEED 56
XIV SAVED! 61
XV IN CAMP 65
XVI FOOTPRINTS 74
XVII ACTION 80
XVIII THE MESSAGE 84
XIX PAGE TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FOUR 88
XX STOP! 92
XXI SEEIN' THINGS 97
XXII HARK! THE CONQUERING HERO COMES 104
XXIII PETER FINDS A WAY 109
XXIV DESERTED 114
XXV BEDLAM 122
XXVI THE CULPRIT AT THE BAR 128
XXVII SOME NOISE 134
XXVIII ON THE TRAIL 138
XXIX VOICES 142
XXX FACE TO FACE 146
XXXI ALONE 154
XXXII ON TO BRIDGEBORO 159
XXXIII HARK! THE CONQUERING HERO COMES BACK 165
XXXIV PEE-WEE HOLDS FORTH 169
XXXV SCOUTMASTER NED DOESN'T SEE 174
XXXVI MORE HARDLING 180
XXXVII HINTS 185
XXXVIII THE FIXER 192
XXXIX BETRAYED! 197
XL GUESS AGAIN 206

ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE
"WHO--WHO ARE--YOU?" PEE-WEE STAMMERED Frontispiece HANDWRITTEN NOTE 27 "The road is closed," said Peter. 109 PEE-WEE BEFORE THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE. 130 "WE'RE NOT MINERS, WE'RE SCOUTS!" PEE-WEE SHOUTED. 202

PEE-WEE HARRIS ON THE TRAIL
CHAPTER I
THE LONE FIGURE
The night was bleak and cold. All through the melancholy, cheerless day, the first chill of autumn had been in the air. Toward evening the clouds had parted, showing a steel-colored sky in which the sun went down a great red ball, tinting the foliage across the river with a glow of crimson. A sun full of rich light but no heat.
The air was heavy with the pungent fragrance of burning leaves. The gutters along Main Street were full of these fluttering, red memorials of the good old summer-time.
But there were other signs that the melancholy days had come. Down at the Bridgeboro station was a congestion of trunks and other luggage bespeaking the end of the merry play season. And saddest of all, the windows of the stationery stores were filled with pencil-boxes and blank books and other horrible reminders of the opening of school.
Look where one would, these signs confronted the boys of Bridgeboro, and there was no escaping them. Even the hardware store had straps and tin lunch boxes now filling its windows, the same window where fishing rods and canoe paddles had lately been displayed.
Even the man who kept the shoe store had turned traitor and gathered up his display of sneaks and scout moccasins, and exhibited in their places a lot of school shoes. "Sensible footwear for the student" he called them. Even the drug store where mosquito dope and ice cream sodas had been sold now displayed a basket full of small sponges for the sanitary cleansing of slates. The faithless wretch who kept this store had put a small sign on the basket reading, "For the classroom." One and all, the merchants of Main Street had gone over to the Board of Education and all signs pointed to school.
But the most pathetic sight to be witnessed on that sad, chill, autumn night, was the small boy in a threadbare gray sweater and shabby cap who stood gazing wistfully into the seductive windows of Pfiffel's Home Bakery. The sight of him standing there with his small nose plastered against the glass, looking with silent yearning upon the jelly rolls and icing cakes, was enough to arouse pity in the coldest heart.
Only the rear of this poor, hungry little fellow could be seen from the street, and if his face was pale and gaunt from privation and want, the hurrying pedestrians on their cheerful way to the movies were spared that pathetic sight.
All they saw was a shabby cap and an ill-fitting sweater which bulged in back as if something were being carried in the rear pocket. And there he stood, a poor little figure, heedless of the merry throngs that passed, his wistful gaze fixed upon a four-story chocolate cake, a sort of edible skyscraper, with a tiny dome