Pee-Wee Harris on the Trail | Page 7

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