Pee-Wee Harris on the Trail | Page 8

distinguish the momentary pauses
between the breaths and sometimes the faint sound seemed continuous.
As he listened in silent, awful terror, the thumping of his heart seemed
to interrupt the steady, low sound.
It was not normal breathing surely, but it was the sound of breathing.
He was certain of that. He thought it was over near the car.
CHAPTER IX
THE TENTH CASE
The thought that there was a living presence in that spooky dungeon
struck terror to Pee-wee's very soul. He could not bring himself to
move, much less to speak. But he could not stand idly where he was,
and if he should stumble over a human form in that unknown
blackness.... What could be more appalling than that? Was this uncanny
place a prison for poor, injured captives? Was there, lying just a few
feet from him, some suffering victim of those scoundrels? What did it
mean? Pee-wee could only stand, listening in growing fear and
agitation.
"Who's there?" he finally asked, and his own trembling voice seemed
strange to him.

There was no answer.
"Who's there?" he asked again.
Silence; only the low, steady sound; punctuated, as it seemed by his
own heart beats.
"Who--is--is anybody there?"
Then, suddenly, in a kind of abandon, he cast off his fears and groped
his way with hands before him toward the low sound. Presently his
hand was upon something round and small. It had a kind of tube
running from it. He felt about this and touched something else. He felt
along it; it was smooth and continuous.
And then he knew, and he experienced infinite relief. His hand was
upon the spare tire on the rear of the car. The air was slowly escaping
in irregular jerks from the valve of this tire, making that low sound,
now hardly audible, now clearer and steadier, that escaping air will
sometimes cause when passing through a leaky valve. The darkness and
Pee-wee's own thumping heart had contributed to the horrible illusion
and he smiled in the utter relief which he experienced by the discovery.
But one other discovery he had made also which gave him an
inspiration and made him feel foolish that he had not had the
inspiration before. The little round thing that he had felt in about the
center of the tire was the red tail light of the car; he realized that now.
And this discovery reminded him that he could have all the light he
wanted by the mere touching of a switch.
"That shows how stupid I am," said Pee-wee. He was so relieved and
elated that he could afford to be generous with self accusations. "One
thing sure, it shows how when you hunt for a thing you find something
else, so if you're mistaken it's a good thing."
This was logical, surely, and he now proceeded to avail himself of the
benefit of his chance discovery. Presently this dank, mysterious,
spooky dungeon would be bathed in welcome light. Pee-wee climbed

into the front seat and moved his hand across the array of nickel dials
and buttons on the instrument board. There seemed to be a veritable
multitude of little handles and indicators for the control of the
Hunkajunk super six touring model. Not even a wireless apparatus,
with which Pee-wee's scouting experience had made him familiar, had
such a variety of shiny little odds and ends.
Having no knowledge of these things he moved his hand among them
cautiously, fearful lest some inadvertent touch might cause the car to go
careering into the board wall. He bent his head close to the instrument
board in search of printed words indicating the purpose of the various
buttons, but the darkness was too dense for him to see anything but the
shiny nickel. At the same time his wandering foot, conducting an
exploration of its own, came against a little knob.
Pee-wee never knew precisely what he did to cause the startling
occurrence which followed. There were two switch buttons, side by
side, and in one a small key had been left. Evidently he decided that
this was the lighting switch. He was just able to decipher the word
IGNITION above it. But alas, the word ignition means SPARK on an
auto.
Whether he purposely, in curiosity, stepped on the button in the floor
he never knew. In nine cases out of ten it would have required more
effort to start the Hunkajunk touring model. But this was the tenth case.
In a frantic effort to stop the power, or perhaps in groping with his hand,
he pulled down the spark lever, and the six cylinder brute of an engine
awoke to life!
Out of the exhaust pipe in back poured the fatal volume of gaseous
smoke which spells death, horrible and suffocating, when