Pee-Wee Harris on the Trail | Page 5

another voice answered.
"I've got forty-three and two blackjacks," said the first voice.
"You're wrong," said the other.
"I jotted them down," the first voice replied.
"We should worry," the other one laughed.
At this appalling revelation of seventy pistols between them, to say
nothing of two blackjacks, there seemed indeed very little for the
speakers to worry about. But for Scout Harris, whose whole stock of
ammunition consisted of a remnant of sandwich and the almost naked
core of an apple, there seemed much to worry about.
Pee-wee realized now that he was awake and being borne along at an
excessive rate of speed. He knew that he was in Bartlett's big
Hunkajunk car and that the dark figures with all the firearms on the
front seat were not Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett.
Trembling, he spread the robe so as the more completely to cover his
small form including his head. For a moment he had a wild impulse to
cast this covering off and scream, or at least, to jump from the speeding
car. But a peek from underneath the robe convinced him of the folly of
this. To jump would be to lose his life; to scream--well, what chance
would he have with two bloodthirsty robbers armed with seventy
pistols and two blackjacks? There were few boy scouts who could
despatch an apple core with such accuracy of aim as W. Harris, but of
what avail is an apple core against seventy pistols?
He could not hear all that was said on the front seat but the fragments
of talk that he did hear were alarming in the last degree.
"--best way to handle them," said one of those dark figures.
"I've got a couple of dead ones to worry about," said the other.
Pee-wee curled up smaller under the robe and hardly breathed. Indeed

two dead ones was something to worry about. Suppose--suppose he
should be the third!
"One for me, but I'm not worrying about him," said the other.
"We'll get away with it," his companion commented.
Then followed some talk which Pee-wee could not hear, but he felt
certain that it was on their favorite topic of murder. Then he overheard
these dreadful, yet comparatively consoling words:
"Trouble with him is he always wants to kill; he's gun crazy. Take them
if you want to, but what's the use killing? That's what I said to him."
"Steal--"
"Oh sure, that's just what I told him," the speaker continued; "steal
up--"
"Step on it," the other interrupted, "we're out in the country now."
The big super six Hunkajunk car darted forward and Scout Harris could
hear the purring of the big engine as the machine sped along through
the solemn darkness. A momentary, cautious glimpse from under the
big robe showed him that they were already far from the familiar
environs of Bridgeboro, speeding along a lonely country road.
Now and then they whizzed past some dark farmhouse, or through
some village in which the law abiding citizens had gone to their beds.
Occasionally Pee-wee, peeking from beneath the robe, saw cheerful
lights shining in houses along the way and in his silent terror and
apprehension he fancied these filled with boy scouts in the full
enjoyment of scout freedom; scouts who were in no danger of being
added to some bloody list of dead ones.
That he, Pee-wee Harris, mascot of the Raven Patrol, First Bridgeboro
Troop, should have come to this! That he should be carried away by a
pair of inhuman wretches, to what dreadful fate he shuddered to

conjecture. That he, Scout Harris, whose reputation for being wide
awake had gone far and wide in the world of scouting, should be
carried away unwittingly by a pair of thieves and find himself in
imminent peril of being added to that ghastly galaxy of "dead ones." It
was horrible.
Pee-wee curled up under the robe so as to disarm any suspicion of a
human form beneath that thick, enveloping concealment and even
breathed with silent caution. Suppose--suppose--oh horrors--suppose he
should have to sneeze!
CHAPTER VI
A MESSAGE IN THE DARK
Pee-wee seldom had any doubts about anything. What he knew he
knew. And what is still better, he knew that he knew it. No one ever had
to remind Pee-wee that he knew a thing. He not only knew it and knew
that he knew it, but he knew that everybody that he knew, knew that he
knew it. As he said himself, he was "absolutely positive."
Pee-wee knew all about scouting; oh, everything. He knew how and
where tents should be put up and where spring water was to be found.
He did not know all about the different kinds of birds, but he knew all
about the different kinds of eats, and