"Listen, Pepsy," Pee-wee said. "Do you know what the Morse Code is? It's the language they use when they telegraph. Scouts have to know all about that. Do you remember when I said hide Kelly's barn last night? That's what that first feller said to the other one who was stuck. Didn't you notice how his little red light kept flashing away up the road? That's what it meant. They're hiding in Kelly's barn and nobody knows it.

"There's a sign in the post office and it says they'll give two hundred and fifty dollars to anybody who tells where they are. Do you think I'd tell Beriah Bungel?" he added contemptuously. "I'm going to tell a man named Sawyer, he's the county prosecutor, he lives in Baxter City. Only we have to go right away. I'm going back with the mail car to Baxter. Do you want to go? If you do you have to hurry up."

The last time that Pepsy had appeared before an official—of—the—law she had been sent to the big brick building and she was naturally wary of prosecutors, judges and such people. Suppose Mr. Sawyer should order herself and Pee-wee to the gallows for meddling in these dark, mysterious matters. Pee-wee read this in her face.

"Don't be scared," he said manfully; "I wouldn't let anybody hurt you. My father knows a man that's a judge and he tells jokes and has two helpings of dessert and everything just like other people. Prosecutors aren't so bad, gee whiz, they're better than poison-ivy; they're better than school principals anyway, that's sure. You see, I'll handle him all right."

Pepsy's thoughts wandered to the six merry maidens whom Pee-wee had "handled" with such astounding skill. "Can't we have our refreshment parlor any more?" she asked, with a note of homesickness for the little place they had decorated with such high hope. "If you'll wait, if you'll wait as much as—two weeks—lots and lots and lots and lots of people will come—"

But Pee-wee was not to be deterred by sentiment and false hope. "Don't you want us to have two hundred and fifty dollars?" he asked scornfully. "Don't you want us to buy those tents?" This was too much for Pepsy. She grasped Pee-wee's hand, following him reluctantly, as she gave a wistful look back at their little wayside shelter. The "stock" had not been set out for the day and the bare counter made the place look forlorn and deserted as they went away.

"It's a blamed sight easier than running a refreshment parlor," Pee-wee said; "it's just like picking the money up in the street. All we have to do is to go to Mr. Sawyer's office and tell him and—"

"You have to go in first," said Pepsy.

Pee-wee's enthusiasm was contagious and Pepsy was soon keyed up to the new enterprise, even to the point of facing Mr. Sawyer. She had cautiously resolved, however, to remain close to the door of his office, so that she might effect a precipitate retreat at the first mention of an orphan asylum.

Whatever Pee-wee did must be right and she saw now that two hundred and fifty dollars won in the twinkling of an eye was better than life spent in the retail trade. Yet she could not help thinking wistfully and fondly of their little enterprise and its cosy headquarters.

They sat on a rock by the roadside waiting for the mailman's auto to come along. Once in that Pepsy felt that her fate would be sealed. She had never been away from Everdoze since she had first been taken there. Baxter City was a vast place which she had seen in her dreams, a place where people were arrested and run over and where the constables were dressed up like soldiers. She clung tight to Pee-wee's hand.

"I hate him, too," she said, referring to Beriah Bungel, "and it will serve him right if Whitie dies and I just hope he does, because his father hit you."

"Who's Whitie?" Pee-wee asked.

"He's Mr. Bungel's little boy and he's all white because he's sick, and they can't take him to a great big place in the city so they can make him all well again and it just serves him right and I'm glad they haven't got any money. Everybody says he's going to die and Licorice Stick knows he's going to die in a rainstorm on a Friday, that's what he said."

This information about a little boy who was so pale that they called him Whitie, and who was going to die in a rainstorm on a Friday was all new to Pee-wee.

"Licorice Stick is crazy," he said. "What does he know about dying? He never died, did he?" This brilliant argument appeared to impress Pepsy.

"If they took him to a hospital in New York then he wouldn't have to die because they could fix him," Pepsy said. "I heard Aunt Jamsiah say so. There are doctors there that can' fix people all well again."

"I bet I'm as good a fixer as they are," Pee-wee said; "I fixed lots of people; I fixed a whole patrol once."

"So they wouldn't die?"

"They thought they were smart but I fixed them."

"Fixing smarties is different," said Pepsy. "If people have something the matter with their hips you can't fix them. Because, anyway, if they're going to die on a Friday even snail water won't fix them."

"Snail water, what's that?"

"It's medicine made from snails; Licorice Stick knows how to make it. You have to stir it with a willow stick and then you get well quick."

"How can you get well quick when snails are slow?" Pee-wee asked. "That shows that Licorice Stick is crazy. It would be better to make it with lightning-bugs."

"Lightning-bugs mean there are ghosts around," said Pepsy, "the lightning-bugs are their eyes. But anyway, just the same, nobody can fix Whitie Bungel, because the doctor from Baxter said so, and he knows because he's got an automobile."

"Automobiles don't prove you know a lot," said Pee-wee.

"Just the same Whitie is going to die," said Pepsy, "and then you'll see, because when my mother didn't have any money she died, so there." Pee-wee did not answer; he appeared to be thinking. And so the minutes passed as they sat there on the rock by the roadside, waiting for the mailman's auto to take them to Baxter City.

"Do you say I can't fix it?" he finally demanded. "Maybe you think scouts can't fix things. They know first aid, scouts do. I can fix that little feller; maybe you think I can't. You come with me, I'll show you. Scouts—scouts can do things—they're better than snails and lightning-bugs. I'll show you what they can do; you come with me."

"Ain't you going to wait for the mailman?"

"No, I'm not. You come with me."

This apparent desertion of another cherished enterprise all in the one day, took poor Pepsy quite by storm. She did not understand the workings of Pee-wee's active and fickle mind. But she followed his sturdy little form dutifully as he trudged up the road and into a certain lane. On he went, like a redoubtable conqueror with Pepsy after him. To her consternation he went straight up to the kitchen door, yes, of Constable Beriah Bungel's humble abode! Pepsy stood behind him in a kind of daze and heard his resounding knock as in a dream. Then suddenly to her dismay and terror she saw Beriah Bungel himself standing in the open doorway looking fiercely down at the little khaki-clad scout.

"Mr. Bungel," she heard as she stood gaping and listening and ready to run at the terrible official's first move, "Mr. Bungel, if you want to know where those two fellers are that stole the motorcycles, they're hiding in Kelly's barn and I guess they'll stay there till dark. So if you want to go and get them you'll get two hundred and fifty dollars as long as you don't say who told you where they are."

Without another word he turned and trudged away along the path, Pepsy following after him, to astonished to speak.



CHAPTER XXII

FATE IS JUST

On that very morning Constable Bungel performed the stupendous feat which sent his name ringing through Borden County and established him definitely as the Sherlock Holmes of Everdoze.

Followed by the local citizenry, who marveled at his deductive skill, he advanced against Kelly's barn in the outskirts of Berryville. Here, perceiving evidences of occupation, he demanded admittance and on being ignored he forced an entrance and courageously arrested two young fellows who were hiding there waiting for the night to come.

It is painful to relate that in process of being captured one of these youthful fugitives delivered a devastating blow upon the long nose of the constable thereby unconsciously doing a good turn like a true scout and repaying him in kind for his treatment of Pee-wee Thus it will be seen that fate is just for, as Pee-wee explained to Pepsy, "He got everything I wanted him to get, a punch in the nose and two hundred and fifty dollars. And that shows how I got paid back for doing a good turn, because if I hadn't given up that two hundred and fifty dollars he wouldn't have got punched, so you see it pays to be generous and kind like it says in the handbook."

The official pride of Beriah Bungel as he led his captives back to Everdoze to await transportation to Baxter City was somewhat chilled by the inglorious appearance of his face. There can be no pomp and dignity in company with a wounded nose and Beriah Bungel's nose was the largest thing about him except his official prowess.

"Don't tell anybody I told him," Pee-wee whispered to Pepsy, "or you'll spoil it all and they won't give him the money."

"Suppose he tells himself," Pepsy said.

But Officer Bungel did not tell of the keen eyes and scout skill which had put him in the way of profit and glory. For he was like the whole race of Beriah Bungels the world over, officious, ignorant, contemptible, grafting, shaming human nature and making thieving fugitives look manly by comparison.

Everdoze was greatly aroused by this epoch making incident. Even a few stragglers from Berryville followed the crowd back as far as Uncle Ebenezer's farm and Pee-wee tried to tempt them into the ways of the spendthrift with taffy and other delights which cause the reckless to fall. But it was of no use.

"I bet if there was a murder we could sell a lot," he said. "Motorcycle thief crowds aren't very big. If the town hall burned down I bet we'd do a lot of business. I wish the school-house would burn down, hey? Murders and fires, those, are the best, especially murders, because lots of people come."

"I like fires better," Pepsy said. "Lots and lots and lots of people go to fires."

"Yes, and they get thirsty watching them, too," said Pee-wee. "That's the time to shout, ice cold lemonade."

There was one person in Everdoze, and only one, who neither followed nor witnessed this triumphal march, which had something of the nature of a pageant. This was a little lame boy, very pale, who sat in a wheel chair on the back porch of the lowly Bungel homestead.

The house was up a secluded lane and did not command a view of the weeds and rocks of the main thoroughfare. This frail little boy, whose blue veins you could follow like a trail, had never seen or heard of Pee-wee Harris, scout of the first class (if ever there was one) and mascot of the Raven Patrol. He had indeed heard his father speak of "cuffing a sassy little city urchin on the ear," but how should he know that this same sassy little urchin had thrown away two hundred and fifty dollars?

Thrown it away? Well, let us hope not. Let us hope that those wonder workers in the big city succeeded in "fixing" him, as indeed they must have done, if they were as good fixers as Scout Harris. Let us hope that Licorice Stick had gotten things wrong (as we have seen him do once before) and that little Whitie Bungel did not die in a rainstorm on a Friday.



CHAPTER XXIII

WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY

To translate some little red flashes of light and read a secret in them was utterly beyond the comprehension of poor Pepsy. Here was a miracle indeed, compared with which the prophecies and spooky adventures of Licorice Stick were as nothing. And to win two hundred and fifty dollars by such a supernatural feat was staggering to her simple mind.

Licorice Stick's encounters with "sperrits" had never brought him a cent. But deliberately to sacrifice this fabulous sum in the interest of a poor little invalid that he had never seen, made Pee-wee not only a prophet but a saint to poor Pepsy. If scouts did things like this they were certainly extraordinary creatures. To give two hundred and fifty dollars to a person who has boxed your ears and then to go merrily upon your way in quest of new triumphs, that Pepsy could not understand.

The whole business had transpired so quickly that Pepsy had only seen the two hundred and fifty dollars flying in the air, as it were, and now they were poor again, even before they had realized their riches. And there was Pee-wee sitting on the counter of their unprofitable little roadside rest, with his knees drawn up, sucking a lemon stick (which apparently no one else wanted) and discoursing on the subject of good turns generally. There seemed to be nothing in his life now but the lemon stick.

"You think girls can't do good turns, don't you?" Pepsy queried wistfully.

Pee-wee removed the lemon stick from his mouth, critically inspecting the sharp point which he had sucked it to. By a sort of vacuum process he could sharpen a stick of candy till it rivaled a stenographer's pencil.

"Do you know what reciprocal means?" he asked with an air of concealing some staggering bit of wisdom.

"It's a kind of a church," Pepsy ventured.

"That's Episcopal," Pee-wee said with withering superiority! Placing the lemon stick carefully in his mouth again. This action was followed by a sudden depression of both cheeks, like rubber balls from which the air has escaped. He then removed the dagger-like lemon stick again to observe it.

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and you give me yours, that's a good turn, isn't it? And if I give you mine that's another good turn, isn't it? And we're both just as well off as we were before. That's recip—" He had to pause to lick some trickling lemon juice from his chubby chin, "rical."

Pepsy seemed greatly impressed, and Pee-wee continued his edifying lecture. "I should worry about two hundred and fifty dollars because you saw how people always get paid back only sometimes it isn't so soon like with the apples. Everything always comes out all right," continued the little optimist between tremendous sucks, "and if you're going to get a punch in the nose you get it, and you can see how Mr. Bungel got paid back auto—what'd you call it?"

"Automobile?" Pepsy ventured.

"Automatically," Pee-wee blurted out, catching a fugitive drop of lemon juice as it was about to leave his chin. "Good turns are the same as bad turns, only different. Do you see? I bet you can't say automatically while you're sucking a lemon stick."

"Is it a—a scout stunt?" Pepsy asked. Pee-wee performed this astounding feat for her edification, catching the liquid by-product with true scout agility. Whether from scout gallantry or scout appetite, he did not put Pepsy to the test.

"I'm glad of it, anyway," she said, "because now we can stay here and have our store and there isn't anybody like that pros—like that Mr. Sawyer to be afraid of."

"Do you think I'm afraid of prosecutors?" Pee-wee demanded to know. "I'm not afraid of them any more then I'm afraid of June-bugs; I bet you're afraid of June-bugs."

"I'm not," she vociferated, tossing her red braids and looking very brave.

"Then why should you be afraid of prosecutors?"

"I wouldn't be afraid of anything that doesn't sting."

Pepsy said nothing, only thought. And Pee-wee said nothing, only sucked the lemon stick, observing it from time to time, as its point became more deadly.

"Maybe I'm not as brave as you are and can't do things and I'm scared of Baxter City, but I bet you. I can think up as good turns as you can, so there! And if you promise to stay here I'll make it so lots of people will come and you can buy the tents and that will be a good turn won't it? You said if you make up your mind to do a thing you can do it."

"I wouldn't take back what I said," said Pee-wee, finishing the lemon stick by a terrible sudden assault with his teeth.

"Well, then, so there, Mr. Smarty," she said with an air of triumph, "I'm going to do a good turn, you see, because I made up my mind to it good and hard, and we'll make lots and lots of money. So do you promise to stay here and keep on being partners? Do you cross your heart you will?"

If Pee-wee had been as observant of Pepsy as he was used to being of signs along a trail he might have noticed that her eyes were all ablaze and that her little, thin, freckly wrist trembled. But how should he know that his own carelessly uttered words had burned themselves into her very soul?

"If you make up your mind to do a thing you can do it."



CHAPTER XXIV

PEPSY'S ENTERPRISE

Pepsy knew the scouts only through Pee-wee. She knew they could do things that girls could not do. She must have been deaf if she did not hear this. She knew they walked with dauntless courage in great cities, and that they were not afraid of prosecutors.

They were strange, wonderful things to her. They possessed all the manly arts and some of the womanly arts as well. They could track, swim, dive, read strange messages in flashes of light, sacrifice appalling riches and think nothing of it. They could cook, sew, imitate birds, and read things in the stars. Pee-wee had not left Pepsy in the dark about any of these matters.

Pepsy knew that she could not aspire to be a scout. The young propagandist had forgotten to tell her of the Girl Scouts who can do a few things, if you please. But one thing Pepsy could do; she could worship at the feet of his heroic legion.

If all there was to doing things was making up your mind to do them, then could she not do a good turn as well as a boy? Surely Scout Harris, the wonder worker, could not be mistaken about anything. He had shown Pepsy, conclusively, how good turns (to say nothing of bad ones) are always paid back by an inexorable law. Punches on the nose, or kindly acts of charity and sweet sacrifice, it was always the same. ...

Pepsy had no money invested in their unprofitable enterprise, for she had no money to invest. Neither had she any capital of scout experience to draw upon. But one little nest egg she had. She had once made a small deposit in this staunch institution of reciprocal kindness. All by herself, and long before she had known of Pee-wee and the scouts, she had done a good turn.

According to the inevitable rule, which she did not doubt, the principal and interest of this could now be drawn. Why not? Somewhere, and she knew where, there was a good turn standing to her credit. It would be paid her just as surely as that splendid punch in the nose was paid to Beriah Bungel. And, using this good turn that was standing to her credit, she would be the instrument which fate would choose, to pay scout Harris back for his great sacrifice of two hundred and fifty dollars. You see how nicely everything was going to work out.

The person who would now do Pepsy the good turn which would bring success and fortune to their little enterprise and enable Scout Harris to buy three tents, was Mr. Ira Jensen who lived in the big red house up the road. A very mighty man was Mr. Ira Jensen almost as terrible in worldly grandeur and official power as a prosecutor. Not quite, but almost. At all events, Pepsy could muster up courage to go and face him, and that she was now resolved to do.

Indeed, this had been her secret.



CHAPTER XXV

AN ACCIDENT

Mr. Ira Jensen sometimes wore a white collar and he was deacon in the church and he was the one who selected the Everdoze school teacher, and he was president of the Horden County Agricultural Association and he had a khaki-colored swinging-seat on his porch and muslin curtains in his windows. So you may judge from all this what a mighty man he was.

Such a man is not to be approached except upon a well-considered plan. It required almost another week of idling in the refreshment parlor, of vain hopes, and ebbing interest on the part of the scout partner, to bring Pepsy to the state of desperation needed for her terrible enterprise. A sudden and alarming turn of Pee-wee's fickle mind precipitated her action.

"Let's eat up all the stuff and make the summerhouse into a gymnasium, and we can give magic lantern shows in it, too. What do you say?" Pee-wee inquired in his most enthusiastic manner. "We can charge five cents to get in." He did not explain whence the audiences would come. He had found an old magic lantern in the attic and that was enough. The only stock now on hand was what might be called the permanent stock (if any stock could be called permanent where Pee-wee was). No longer did the fresh, greasy doughnut and the cooling lemonade grace the forlorn little counter.

"No, I won't!" Pepsy said, tossing those red braids. "I won't eat the things because we started here and I love them, so there!"

"If you love them I should think you'd want to eat them," said Pee-wee. "That shows how much you know about logic."

"I don't care, I'm just going to stay here and if you promise to wait we'll get lots and lots of money," she said. "You promised me you'd wait," she added wistfully, "you crossed your heart. Won't you please wait till—till—five days—may-be? Won't you, please? Maybe that will be a good turn, maybe?"

He did not refuse. Instead he helped himself to some gumdrops out of a glass jar, and appeared to be content. But Pepsy knew better than to trust the fickle heart of man and that night she played the poor little card that she had been holding.

After Uncle Eb and Aunt Jamsiah had gone to bed and while the curly head of Scout Harris was reposing in sweet oblivion upon his pillow, Pepsy crept cautiously down the squeaky, boxed-in stairs and paused, in suspense, in the kitchen. The ticking of the big clock there seemed very loud, almost accusing, and Pepsy's heart seemed to keep time with it as it thumped in her little breast. How different the familiar kitchen seemed, deserted and in darkness! The two stove lids were laid a little off their places to check the banked fire, leaving two bright crescent lines like a pair of eyes staring up at her. This light, reflected in one of the milk pails standing inverted on a high shelf, made a sort of ghostly mirror in which Pepsy saw herself better than in that crinkly, outlandish mirror in her little room.

For a moment she was afraid to move lest she make a noise, and so she paused, almost terrified, looking at her own homely little face, on the most fateful night of her life. Then she tiptoed out through the pantry where the familiar smell of fresh butter reassured her. It seemed companionable, in the strange darkness and awful stillness, this smell of fresh butter. She crept across the side porch where the churn stood like a ghost, a dish-towel on its tall handle and crossed the weedy lawn, where the beehives seemed to be watching her, and headed for the dark, open road. But here her courage failed. Some thought of doing her errand in the morning occurred to her, but, she could not go then without saying where and why she was going. And in case of failure no one must ever know about this. ...

So she screwed up her courage and returned to the side porch to get a lantern. She shook it and found it empty. There was nothing to do now but brave the darkness or go down into the cellar and fill the lantern from the big kerosene can. She paused in the darkness before those sepulchral stone steps, then in a sudden impulse of determination she tightened her little hand upon the lantern till her nails dug into her palms and went down, down.

She groped her way to the kerosene can and finally came upon it and felt its surface. Yes, it was the kerosene can. Her trembling little hand fumbled for the tiny faucet. How queer it felt in the dark when she could not see it! It seemed to have a little knob or something on it. ...

Her hand was shaking but she held the little tank of the lantern under the faucet and was about to turn the handle when something—something soft and wet and silent—touched her other hand. She drew a quick breath, her heart was in her mouth, her hands were icy cold. Still she had presence of mind enough not to scream.

But as she rose in panic terror from her stooping posture, the lantern pulled upward against the faucet, toppling the big can off its skids. There was no plug in the can and the kerosene flowed out upon the terror-stricken child, wetting her shoes and stockings, and made a great puddle on the stone floor. She stood in the darkness, seeing none of this, which made the catastrophe the more terrible.

And then, as she stood in terror, wet and bewildered, waiting for whatever terrible sequel might come, she felt again that something soft and wet and silent on her hand. She moved her hand a little and felt of something soft. Soft in a different way. Soft but not wet.

"Wiggle," she sobbed in a whisper; "why—why—didn't you—you—tell me it was you—Wiggle?"

But he only licked her hand again as if to say, "If there is anything on for to-night, I'm with you. Cheer up. Adventures are my middle name". ...



CHAPTER XXVI

PEPSY'S INVESTMENT

For a few seconds Pepsy stood in suspense amid the spreading, dripping havoc she had caused, listening for some sound above. But the seconds piled up into a full minute and no approaching step was heard. The danger seemed over.

But the very air was redolent of kerosene; she stood in a puddle of it, and one of her stockings and both of her plain little buttoned shoes were thoroughly wet. When she moved her toes she could feel the soppy liquid. Oh, for a light! It would lessen her terror if she could just see what had happened and how she looked.

She groped her way to the small oblong of lesser darkness which indicated the open bulk-head doors, and felt better when she was in the free open darkness of outdoors. Wiggle, seeming to know that something unusual was happening, kept close to her heels.

She reentered the kitchen, where those accusing, ghostly, red slits of eyes in the stove seemed to watch her. She fumbled nervously on the shelf above the stove and got some matches, spilling a number of them on the floor. She could not pause to gather them up while those red eyes stared. She had planned her poor little enterprise with a view to secrecy, but in the emergency and with the minutes passing, she did not now pause to think or consider. Near the flour barrel hung several goodly pudding bags, luscious reminders of Thanksgiving. Aunt Jamsiah had promised to make a plum-pudding for Pee-wee in the largest one of these and he had spent some time in measuring them and computing their capacity, with the purpose of selecting the most capacious. Pepsy now hurriedly took all of these and a kitchen apron along with them, and descended again into the cellar.

By the dim lantern light she lifted the fallen tank and replaced it on its skids. Then she wiped up the floor as best she could with the makeshift mop which had been intended to serve a better purpose. She wiped off her soggy shoes and tried to clean that clinging oiliness from her hands. It seemed to her as if the whole world were nothing but kerosene.

She did not know what to do with the drenched rags, so she took them with her when she started again for the dark road, this time with her two cheery companions, the lantern and Wiggle. She soon found the dripping rags a burden and cast them from her as she passed the well. Wiggle turned back and inspected the smelly, soggy mass, found that he did not like it, took a hasty drink from the puddle under the well spout, and rejoined his companion.

It must have been close to ten o'clock when Mr. Ira Jensen, enjoying a last smoke on his porch before retiring, saw the lantern light swinging up his roadway. The next thing that he was aware of was the pungent odor of kerosene borne upon the freshening night breeze. And then the little delegation stood revealed before him, Wiggle, wagging his tail, the lantern sputtering, and Pepsy's head jerking nervously as if she were trying to shake out what she had to say.

It took Pepsy a few moments to key herself up to the speaking point. Then she spoke tremulously but with a kind of jerky readiness suggesting many lonely rehearsals.

"Mr. Jensen," she said, "I have to do a good turn and so I came to ask you if you'll help me and the reason I smell like kerosene is because I tipped over the kerosene can." This last was not in her studied part, but she threw it in answer to an audible sniff from Mr. Jensen.

"You said when I came here and stayed nights when Mrs. Jensen was sick with the flu and everybody else was sick and you couldn't get anybody to do—to nurse her—you remember?" She did not give him time to answer for she knew that if she paused she could not go on. Her momentum kept her going. "You said then—just before I went home—you'd—you said I was—you said you'd do me a good turn some day, because I helped you. So now a boy that's staying with us—we have a refreshment parlor and nobody comes to buy anything—and he wants to buy some tents and we have to make a lot of money so will you please have them have the County Fair in Berryville this year so lots of people will go past our summerhouse?

"We have lemonade and he calls to the people and tells them, only there ain't any people. But lots and lots and lots of people come to the County Fair from all over, don't they? So now I'd like it for you to do me that good turn if you want to pay me back."

Thus Pepsy, standing tremulously but still boldly, her thin little hand clutching the lantern, played her one card for the sake of Pee-wee Harris, Scout. Standing there in her oil soaked gingham dress, she made demand upon this staunch bank of known probity, for principal and interest in the matter of the one great good turn she had one before she had ever known of Scout Harris. It never occurred to her as she looked with frank expectancy at Mr. Jensen that her naive request was quite preposterous.

To his credit be it said, Mr. Jensen did not deny her too abruptly. Instead he spread his knees and arms and, smiling genially, beckoned her to him.

"I can't, I'm all kerosene," she said.

"Never you mind," he said. "You come and stand right here while I tell you how it is." So she set down the lantern and stepped forward and stood between his knees and then he lifted her into his lap. "Well, well, well, you're quite a girl; you're quite a little girl, ain't you, huh? So you came all the way in the dark to ask me that! Here, you sit right where you are and never you mind about kerosene; if you ain't scared of the dark I reckon I ain't scared of kerosene. Now, I want you should listen 'cause I'm going to tell you jes' how it is n' then you'll understand. Because I call you a little kind of a—a herro—ine, that's what I call you."

He wasn't half wrong about that, either. ...



CHAPTER XXVII

SEEN IN THE DARK

So then he told her how it was about the County Fair, which shortly would open. He told her very gently and kindly how Northvale had been chosen, because it was the county seat and how he was powerless to change the plans.

He looked around into her sober face, and sometimes lifted it to his, and at almost every hope-blighting sentence, asked her if she did not understand. He told her all about how county fairs are big things, planned by many men, months and months in advance. And at each pause and each gently asked question she nodded silently, as if it was all quite clear and plausible, but her heart was breaking.

"But I'm not going to forget that good turn I owe you, no, siree," he added finally as he set her down on the porch, much to Wiggle's relief. "And I'm coming down the road to pay you a visit n' look over that refreshment store of yours n' see if I can't make some suggestions maybe. Now, what do you say to that?"

Pepsy nodded soberly, her thoughts far away.

"You'll see me along there," Mr. Jensen added cheerily, as he patted her little shoulder, "n' I give you fair warning I'm the champion doughnut eater of Borden County."

She smiled, still wistfully, and gulped, oh ever so little.

"That's what I am," he added with another genial pat. "So now you cheer up and run back home and go to bed n' don't you lie awake crying. You tell that little scout feller I'm coming to make you a visit n' that, I usually drink nine glasses of lemonade. Now you run along and get to bed quick."

"Thanks," she said, her voice trembling.

So Pepsy took her way silently along the dark road. Her bank had failed, she could do nothing more. This was a strange sequel to follow Pee-wee's glowing representations about good turns. She did not understand it. And now that she had failed, the catastrophe in the cellar loomed larger, and she saw her nocturnal truancy as a serious thing. What would Aunt Jamsiah think of this? Pepsy had been forbidden to go away from the farm at night, except to weekly prayer meeting.

The crickets sang cheerily as she returned along the dark road, a disconsolate little figure, swinging her lantern. She was weary—weary from exertion and disappointment and foreboding. Her good scout enterprise was suddenly changed into an act of sneaking disobedience. The physical exhaustion which follows nervous strain was upon her now and her little feet lagged in their soaking shoes and once or twice she stumbled with fatigue.

For what burden is heavier than a heavy heart? The soothing voices of insect life which soften the darkness and cheer the wayfarer in the countryside seemed only to mock her with their myriad care-free songs. And to make matters worse there suddenly rang in her ears from far over to the west the loud clatter of those loose planks on the old bridge along the highway, as a car sped over it:

"You have to go back, You have to go back."

Then the noise ceased suddenly, and there was no sound but the calling of a screech-owl somewhere in the intervening woods.

Pepsy sat down on a rock by the roadside partly to rest and partly because she did not want to go home. She knew, or she ought to have known, that Aunt Jamsiah was pretty sure to be lenient about a harmless transgression with so generous a motive. But the warning voice from that unseen bridge disconcerted her. It was not long after she was seated that her head hung down and soon the gentle comforter of sleep came to her and she lay there, pillowing her head on her little thin arm.

But the comforter did not stay long, for Pepsy dreamed a dream. She dreamed that all the people of the village, Simeon Drowser, Nathaniel Knapp, Darius Dragg, the sneering Deadwood Gamely, and even the faithless Arabella Bellison, the school teacher, were pointing fingers a yard long, at her and saying, "You have to go back to the big brick building. You have to go back, you have to go back." On the big doughnut jar in the "refreshment parlor" sat Licorice Stick saying, "You have to go back the next time it thunders." She shook her fist at Licorice Stick and called him a Smarty and said she would not go back, but they all laughed and sang:

"You have to go back, You have to go back."

Miss Bellison was the worst of all. ...

"You have to go back, You have to———"

With a sudden start Pepsy sat up on the rock, wide awake,

"——-go back, You have to go back.",

She still heard.

Her forehead throbbed and her face felt very hot. There was a ringing in her ears. She was feverish, but she did not know that. All she knew was that everybody was against her and that the bridge had put them up to it. She was dizzy and had to put her hand on the rock to steady herself. The lantern light was extinguished but she did not remember the lantern, or Wiggle. She felt very strange and wanted a drink of water. Her hand trembled and her little arm with which she braced herself against the rock, felt weak. And her head throbbed, throbbed. ...

Where were all those people? She felt around for them. Then she heard the voice again, far off through the woods, up along that highway. It was just an innocent automobile,

"You have to go back."

Pepsy rose to her feet with a start, reeled, reached for a tree, and clutched it. "I'll stop it, I'll—I'll make it—it stop—I'll tear it—I'll pull them off," she said. "I—I won't—go back—I won't, I won't, I won't!"

Staggering across the road she entered the woods. Each tree there seemed like two trees. She groped her way among them, dizzy, almost falling. Sometimes the woods seemed to be moving. Perhaps it was by the merest chance that she stumbled into the trail which led through the woods to the highway, ending close to the old bridge.

But once in the familiar path she ran in a kind of frenzy. No doubt the fever gave her a kind of temporary, artificial strength, as indeed it gave her the crazy resolve somehow to still that haunting voice forever. Crazed and reeling she stumbled and ran along, pausing now and again to press her throbbing head, then running on again like one possessed.

At last she came out of the woods suddenly on to the broad, smooth highway. There was the bridge, silent and—no, not dark. For there was a bright spot somewhere underneath it and gray smoke wriggling up through those cracks between the planks. And there, yes, there, crawling away in the darkness was a black figure. A silent, stealthy figure, stealing away.

To the dazed, feverish girl, the figure seemed to have two pairs of arms. She tried to call but could not. Her scream of delirious fright died away into a murmur as she staggered and fell prone upon the ground and knew no more.

But never again—never, never would those cruel planks taunt her with their heartless prediction. Never would they frighten the poor, sensitive, fearful little red-headed orphan girl any more.



CHAPTER XXVIII

STOCK ON HAND

It was Joey Burnside, the burliest and heartiest of the volunteer firemen, who carried Pepsy back through the woods to the farm while still the conflagration was at its height.

There was not timber enough left from the old bridge to kindle a scout camp-fire. A few charred remnants had gone floating down the stream and these fugitive remnants drifting into tiny coves and lodging in the river's bends were shown by the riverside dwellers as memorials of the event which had stirred the countryside more than any other item, of neighborhood history. Under the gaping space of disconnected road the stream flowed placidly, uninterrupted by all the recent hubbub above it. The straight highway looked strange without the bridge.

Pepsy had a fever all that night, but toward morning she fell asleep, and Aunt Jamsiah, who had watched her through the night, tiptoed into the little room under the eaves and out again to tell Pee-wee that he had better wait, that all Pepsy needed now was rest.

"Can't I just look at her?" Pee-wee asked. So he was allowed to stand in the doorway and see his partner as she lay there sleeping the good sleep of utter exhaustion.

"When she wakes up," Aunt Jamsiah said pleasantly.

Pee-wee knew the circumstances of her being found at the burning bridge and brought home, but he asked no questions and Aunt Jamsiah said nothing of the events of that momentous night. It seemed to be generally understood that this matter was in Aunt Jamsiah's hands for thorough consideration later.

Meanwhile Pee-wee went across the lawn and down the road to the scene of their hapless enterprise. The roadside rest could boast now of but two jars, one of peppermint sticks and one of gumdrops (both in rapid process of consumption) and a number of spools of tire tape. But the absence of doughnuts and sausages and lemonade, this was nothing. It was the absence of Pepsy that counted.

Pee-wee took his customary eye-opener, consisting of a gumdrop. He had to shake the jar to get a red one, that being the kind he preferred. Then he drew his legs up on the counter and proceeded to work upon the willow whistle he was making.

His handiwork soon reached that stage of manufacture where it was necessary to soak the willow bark in water, so as to cause it to swell. He thereupon distributed the remaining gumdrops impartially between his mouth and his trousers pocket and filled the empty jar with water, dropping his handiwork into it. Thus by gradual stages and without any sensational "closing out sales" the refreshment business was steadily going into a state of liquidation, even the lemon sticks being reduced to a liquid. There was no stock on hand now but two peppermint sticks and some tire tape.

Suddenly a most astonishing thing happened. The sound of an automobile horn was heard in the distance. A deep, melodious, dignified horn. Not since the passing of the six merry maidens had such welcome music sounded in Pee-wee's enraptured ears.

The signs had all been made fight, the ice cream had been made cold, the sausages hot, and the ground glass had been put where it belonged. No longer did "our taffy stick like glue." Indeed, there was no taffy of any kind on hand, notwithstanding these blatant announcements.

Along came the automobile, an eight-cylinder Super Junkster. And, yes, it was followed by another, and still another. Pee-wee could see the imposing procession as far down as the bend.

"Some detour," a good-natured voice said.

"Detour? Detour?" Pee-wee whispered in sudden and terrible excitement. Then, as the full purport of the staggering truth burst upon him he issued forth from the roadside rest and contemplated the approaching pageant with joy bubbling up like soda water in his heart.

"Never mind," said another voice, "we can get some eats in this jungle, thank goodness. What I won't do to a couple of hot frankfurters."

A sudden chill cooled the fresh enthusiasm of Scout Harris.

"I'll buy every blamed doughnut they've got in the place," somebody shouted. "We won't leave a thing for the rest of the cars that have to plow through this jungle. I suppose this is what motorists will be up against for six months. What do you know about that? This eats merchant ought to clear a couple of million. I'll dicker with him for everything hot that he's got, I'm starving."

"Same here!" another shouted.

Frantically, like a soldier waving his country's emblem in the last desperate moment of forlorn hope Scout Harris clambered over the counter and grasped the jar containing two peppermint sticks.

"Peppermint sticks! Peppermint sticks!" he shouted at the advancing column. "Get your peppermint sticks! They quench thirst and—and—and satisfy your hunger! They're filling! They warm you up! Peppermint is hot! Oh, get your peppermint sticks here!"



CHAPTER XXIX

INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS

Pee-wee emerged safely, if not triumphantly, from this ordeal amid much laughter, and was just congratulating himself upon his skillful handling of "the trade" in a period of acute shortage when he received a knockout blow. In depositing the trifling price of the peppermint sticks in his trousers pocket, he discovered there four gumdrops glued together and clinging so affectionately that nothing could part them.

At the moment of this discovery, Scout Harris, thus driven into a corner and standing at bay with nothing but one huge, consolidated gumdrop for defense, heard the unmistakable sound of another car crawling over the rocks and hubbles of that outlandish road in second gear. On, on, on, it came like some horrible British tank.

And now again he heard voices, "We can eat about twenty of them in my patrol y—mm. Are we hungry? Oh, no! Hot frankfurters! Oh, boy, lead me to them. I could even eat the sign, I'm so hungry. Put her in high. What do we care about the road?"

Pee-wee listened and waited in terrible suspense. Scouts! He knew something about the scout capacity. Then, upon the fresh morning air there floated another voice calling a sentence which he knew too well it was the good scout motto. "Hey there, you, whoever you are, Mr. Refreshment Man? Be Prepared! We're s—c—o—u—t—s we are and we're h—u—n—g—r—e—e! We haven't had anything since breakfast at four-thirty. We had to come around through this rocky tour or detour or whatever you call it. Somebody ate the bridge last night. Are there any scouts down in this South African backyard?"

If Pee-wee had not heard that familiar motto "Be Prepared," he would have known the approaching caravan to be scouts by their talk and banter.

Be Prepared. Pee-wee glanced at the bare counter and the empty jars and the shiny dishpan which held nothing but Pepsy's ball of worsted and the terrible ornamental thing that she was knitting. There they were, just as she had laid them the day before. Poor little Pepsy. ...

Then they descended upon him as only hungry scouts can descend. Pee-wee's glowing promises which decorated the woods (and which he could not fulfill) had brought the party to a state of distraction. It was a big Crackerjack touring car overflowing with scouts and driven by a smiling scoutmaster. It seemed as if they ought to have been pressed in and down with a shovel like ice cream in a quart box.

"For the love of—" one of them began.

"Look what's here, it's a scout."

"That?" shouted another, "Let's have the magnifying glass, will you?"

Pee-wee straightened himself up to his full height. The big Crackerjack touring car stopped.

"Some detour," the scoutmaster said with an air of infinite relief.

"Do they have scouts down here?" a member of the party asked.

"I'm only staying here, I belong in Bridgeboro, New Jersey," Pee-wee said.

"Don't talk about bridges," another scout said.

"Talk about something pleasant. A scout is supposed to save life, scout law number six; let's have a couple of thousand hot dogs, will you? We're dying. And forty-eleven dozen doughnuts with the holes removed."

"Do you—I—eh—do you—need any tire tape?" Pee-wee stammered, playing for time. "Tire tape! What do you take us for? A lot of blow-outs? Let's have some eats and we'll take care of the blow-out."

"Come on, hurry up, a scout is supposed to be prepared," piped up a natty scout wearing the bronze cross.

"Where's all the food?" the scoutmaster asked, glancing at the empty counter. "We were led to suppose—"

"Don't you know what a shortage is?" Pee-wee piped up in sheer desperation.

"We know what a shorty is," one of the party shot back.

"You don't expect us to eat a shortage, do you?" another said. "Come ahead, hurry up, a scout isn't supposed to be cruel. You can always depend on scout signs that you find in the woods. A scout that puts scout signs—"

"Those are different kinds of signs!" Pee-wee shouted. "Those are trail signs. You think you're so smart! That shows how much you know about—about—"

"Three strikes out," one of the scouts shouted. "About—about industrial conditions," Pee-wee concluded. "Don't you know what a—a—what'd you call it—a—"

"Yes, that's what you call it," a scout laughed.

"Don't you know what a reconstruction period is?" Pee-wee fairly yelled, amid uncontrollable laughter. "If something happens like a war—or a—a bridge burning down—or something—or other—that makes business conditions—what'd you call it—it makes them all kind of upside down, doesn't it? Sometimes—kind of—things are hard to get. Everybody knows that."

"We can see it," a scout said.

By this time the scoutmaster was laughing heartily but with the greatest good humor. Pee-wee continued bravely, to the great amusement of the party.

"Gee whiz, nobody ever came along this road. You admit that scouts are hungry, don't you?"

"We proclaim it," said the scoutmaster.

"I ate a lot of the stuff and my aunt wouldn't cook any more stuff for us because nobody ever came and it got stale and I ate too much of it, that's what she said. So now, anyway, we're going to start in again because the business world—and we're—we're going to speed up production."

"All right, speed up the auto and good luck to you," the scout with the bronze cross said. He seemed to be a patrol leader.

There was a little fraternal chat before this boisterous troop moved on and all seemed interested in Pee-wee and his enterprise. They were on their way to camp somewhere down the line. "You'll succeed all right," they called back to him, "only be sure to have plenty of stuff on hand when we come back in a couple of weeks or we'll kill you."

"Do you like waffles and honey?" the proprietor shouted after them.

"We've got the bees working overtime for us," a scout called back.

"I'll have a lot of those—ten cents each," Pee-wee announced. "Do you like clam chowder?" he called, raising his voice to cover the increasing distance.

"Don't you make us hungry," one called back.

"Good luck to you, you'll make it a go all right."

"I'm lucky, I always have good luck," the small optimist screamed at the top of his voice. "Do you like peanut taffy? Do you like hot corn," he added, fairly yelling this sudden inspiration after the departing sufferers; "with butter and pepper on it; do you like that? I'll have some!"

These were the last words they heard as the big car moved slowly over the rocky, grass-grown road. They are good words to end a chapter with—hot corn with pepper and butter on it. ...

Oh, boy!



CHAPTER XXX

PAID IN FULL

Pee-wee was just about to make a frantic rush to the house when he saw another automobile coming along the road, brushing the projecting foliage aside as some stealthily advancing creature might do. Not far behind it he could hear other ears grinding along that impossible road in second gear.

The world seemed to be making a pathway, of rather a highway, to Pee-wee's door. The sequestered, overgrown road, with its intertwined and overarching boughs, was become a surging thoroughfare. The birds, formally unmolested in their wonted haunts, complained to one another of this sudden intrusion into their domains. Away back where this obscure road branched off the highway to furnish the unfrequented access to Everdoze and Berryville, a sign had been placed that morning with an arrow pointing toward the depths of the Everdoze jungle.

DETOUR —>

HIGHWAY CLOSED. FOLLOW YELLOW ARROWS.

These yellow arrows appeared at intervals along the Everdoze road, thus guiding the motorist back to the highway at a point a mile or two below the gap where the bridge had been. Everdoze was on the map now in dead earnest. The little hamlet nestling in its wooded valley was destined to review such a procession of Pierce-Arrows, and Packards, and Cadillacs, aye and Fords and jitney busses, as it had never dreamed of in all its humble career.

Who was responsible for this? Or was accident responsible? Who, if anyone, by the mere touching of a match had started a blaze which, would illuminate poor little Everdoze? Everdoze had gone to bed (at eight P. M.) in obscurity. It had awakened to find itself dragged into the light of day. Already Constable Bungel was devising a formidable code of "traffic regulations"—traps and snares to catch the prosperous and make them pay tribute as they passed along.

As early as seven o'clock that vigilant agent of the peace had placed a sign in front of the post office (where he was wont to loiter) reading, "NO PARKING HERE." But all the while he hoped that the unwary would park there and pay the three dollars and costs.

But of all the signs which appeared in Everdoze on that day when fate, like an alarm clock, had awakened it out of its slumber, there was one which thrilled the soul of Pee-wee Harris and caused consternation to everybody else. This appeared in front of the "Town Hall" and at a number of other strategic places in and out of the village.

"Come and read it! Come and read it!" shouted little Silas Knapp as he madly intercepted Pee-wee who, as I have said, was about to run to the house. "It's a monolopy or somethin' like that—Mr. Drowser says so! Come and read it!"

So before going to the house Pee-wee went and read it. He did not know that the stern phraseology had been penned ever so tenderly and with a twinkle in the eye, of the writer. He did not know that it was a tribute (or shall we say the repayment of a good turn?) to the little red-headed girl, who, all unaware of this hubbub, was sleeping in her little bedroom under the eaves. Strange that such a little girl could thus shake her fist by proxy at the grasping villagers!

NOTICE

The property on both sides of the road from two miles north of the Everdoze line to the boundary of Ebenezer Quig's farm, is of private ownership.

Anyone attempting to sell or vend or who erects any tent or shack for such purpose upon said property will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

IRA C. JENSEN.

So Pepsy had kept her word after all, her one poor little investment of kindness had paid a hundred percent dividend, and the partners were the owners of a monopoly, or a monolopy, whichever you choose to call it.



CHAPTER XXXI

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Along the road and over the stone wall and straight across the bed of tiger-lilies sped Pee-wee, using his own particular mode of scout pace, patent not applied for. Across the side porch and into the kitchen he went, pell-mell, shouting in a voice to crack the heavens.

"It's a monolopy—I mean a monopoly! We've got a monopoly! Where's everybody? Hey, Aunt Jamsiah, where are you? Where's Uncle Eb? Hurry up and make some doughnuts? There's a detour! Cars—hundreds of cars—from the highway—they're coming along the road. You ought to see. Where's the ice-pick? Can I have some lemons? Are there any cookies left? I left two on the plate last night. Where's the sugar so I can—"

He paused in his frenzy of haste and enthusiasm as Aunt Jamsiah opened the sitting room door, very quietly and seriously.

"Shh, come in here, Walter," she said.

Her manner, kind, gentle, but serious, disconcerted Pee-wee and chilled his enthusiasm. The very fact that he was summoned into the sitting room seemed ominous for that holy of holies was never used; not more than once or twice in Pee-wee's recollection had his own dusty shoes stood upon that sacred oval-shaped rag carpet. Never before had he found himself within reaching distance of that plush album that stood on its wire holder on the marble table.

This solemn apartment was the only room in the house that had a floor covering and the fact that Pee-wee could not hear his own foot-falls agitated him strangely. Uncle Eb sat in the corner near the melodeon looking strangely out of place in his ticking overalls.

"Is—is she—dead?" Pee-wee whispered fearfully.

"Sit down, Walter," said Aunt Jamsiah; "no, she isn't dead, she's better."

Uncle Eb said nothing, only watched Pee-wee keenly.

Pee-wee seated himself, feeling very uncomfortable.

"Walter," said his aunt, "something very serious has happened and I'm going to ask one or two questions. You will tell me the truth, won't you?"

"I'll answer fer him doin' that," said Uncle Eb.

"Sure I will," said Pee-wee proudly.

"Walter, do you know what Pepsy's secret was? You remember she said she had a secret that would make lots and lots of people come and buy things from you?"

"Girls are—" Pee-wee began. He was going to say they were crazy, but remembering the one that lay upstairs he caught himself up and said, "they're kind of—they think they have big ideas when they haven't. I should worry about their secrets."

"But some of Pepsy's ideas and plans have been very big, Walter," his aunt said ruefully. "You see we know her better than you do. She's very, very queer; I'm afraid no one understands her."

"I understand her," said Pee-wee. "She believes in bad luck days."

Aunt Jamsiah paused a moment, considering; then she went straight to the point. "Pepsy wants to do right, dear, but she will do wrong in order to do right—sometimes. We have always been a little fearful of her for that reason. She—she can't argue in her own mind and consider things as—as you do."

"I know lots of dandy arguments," Pee-wee announced.

"You know, Walter, her father was a—he was a—not a very good man. And Pepsy is—queer. Last night she made a dreadful mess in the cellar. She was at the kerosene; oh, it makes me just sick to think of it. She had some rags soaked with kerosene. Some of them were found out by the well. The others—" Aunt Jamsiah lifted her handkerchief to her eyes and wept for a moment, silently.

"What others?" Pee-wee asked.

"The ones that were used to set fire to the bridge, dear. Oh, it's terrible to think of it. Poor, poor Pepsy. That is what is bringing lots and lots of people along our road to-day, Walter. Pepsy was found lying unconscious near the bridge. She had kerosene all over her. One charred rag was found over there. It just makes me—it makes me—"

Pee-wee arose and laid one hand on the back of the hair-cloth chair. He, too, was concerned now.

"You—you didn't tell her—you didn't blame—accuse her—did you?" he asked.

"No, I didn't," his aunt breathed worriedly.

"I asked her to tell me all about last night and she would tell me nothing. She said that the planks on the bridge tormented her. To almost everything I asked her she said, 'I won't tell.' She is very, very stubborn; she was always so."

"Because, anyway," Pee-wee said, alluding to his former query, "if anybody says she burned down the bridge on purpose it's a lie. I don't care who says it, it's a lie. She's—she's my partner—and it's a lie. If—even—if the minister says it, it's a lie!"

"Listen, my dear boy," said his aunt kindly. "I'm not angry with Pepsy, poor child. I'm not accusing her, and you mustn't talk about the Rev. Mr. Gloomer telling lies. Pepsy tried to burn down the orphan home once, for some trifling grievance. We can't take the responsibility of the poor child any longer. I'm afraid that any minute Beriah Bungel will want to take her—arrest her. I know she's your partner, dear, but it would be better for us to send her back to the state home where she will probably be kept than to let her be arrested. I don't think she knew what she was doing, poor, poor child—"

Aunt Jamsiah broke down completely, crying in her handkerchief. So Uncle Eb finished what little there was to say.

"We had to send fer 'em, Walter," said he. "She'll be better off there fer a spell, I reckon. I ain't so sure about her doin' it, though it looks bad. Least ways, she didn't know what she was doing. But don't you worry—"

Pee-wee did not wait to hear more. He just could not stand there.

"When—when are they—coming?" he asked. "I reckon to—morrow, boy. Now, you look here—."

But Pee-wee had gone.

Up the narrow, boxed-in stairs he went, never asking permission. He could see nothing but a big enclosed wagon, dark inside, with Pepsy inside it. He had no more idea what he was going to do that day than the man in the moon. But he knew what he was going to do that very minute. When a scout makes up his mind to do a thing. ...

Into the little room under the eaves he strode, his eyes glistening, but his heart staunch and his resolve indomitable. And she smiled when she saw him. She was sitting up and she looked ever so little in her nightclothes and ever so plain with her tightly braided red hair. But her eyes were clear and she smiled when she looked at him. ...

"I won't tell anybody where I went," she said, "because I was a smarty and I thought I could make somebody do a good turn ever so—ever so big. And they'd only laugh at me if I told them what it was. So I'm not going to be a tell-tale cat."

"Pep," he said, "it shows that you're right because lots and lots of automobiles are coming along our road since the old bridge burned down and it's a detour and that means hundreds and hundreds of them have to go past our refreshment place and we're going to make lots of money. And I thought of a dandy idea, it's what they call an inspiration. We're going to name the place Pepsy Rest, because Pepsy will remind people to buy chewing gum, because that has pepsin in it and as soon as you're all well we'll start in and keep on being partners, because we have a monopoly. Do you know what that is? It's when you can sell all you want of something and nobody else can sell it. ...

"Mr. Jensen, he put up a sign, and he said no one should sell things on his property and he owns all the property along the road, and you bet everybody is scared of him. So now we're going to have a great big business and we began as poor boys, I mean girls, I mean a boy and a girl. So don't you believe anything that anybody tells you, not even—not even Aunt Jamsiah. Because you know how I told you I was a good fixer and I'm always lucky, you have to admit that."

"Can I be the one to count the money?" Pepsy asked.

"Sure, and I'll be the one to eat what's left of the things that won't keep," said Pee-wee. "Only don't you worry no matter what you hear—"

She was on the point of telling him how Mr. Jensen had done his good turn after all, and all about what she remembered of the previous night. But she decided that she was not going to have a boy laughing at her and put it within his power to call her a tell-tale cat some day. So instead she threw her arms around him and said, "Oh goody, goody!"

You know how girls do.



CHAPTER XXXII

THE CLEW

Pee-wee never knew until now how much he cared about his little companion of the summer and how little he cared about their roadside enterprise except so far as she was concerned in it. All morning the almost continuous procession passed along the road reviewed by a gaping assemblage on the platform in front of the post office. Many motorists who read the enticing promises along the way paused for refreshment only to find the little rustic shelter bare and deserted.

But they were not the only ones to be disappointed. Upon the front porch of Doctor Killem's house there sat in a wheel chair the queerest little figure ever seen outside of a soup advertisement. He was of the kewpie type, all head and eyes, and he had a kind of ridiculous air of stern authority about him as he sat all bundled up in blankets soberly reviewing the passing cars. So odd and gnomelike was he that he might have stepped out of the pages of "Alice in Wonderland." He would have made a good radiator ornament on an automobile.

This, you will know, was little Whitie Bungel, who seemed not at all disconcerted at being elsewhere than in his own home. He had been moved about so much without any exertion on his own part that he was quite at home anywhere.

Though Pee-wee had spoken in high hope to Pepsy about their unexpected and glowing prospects, he was haunted by thoughts of the terrible thing which was to happen on the morrow. Pepsy was to be taken away, back to the big brick building which she hated, just as the planks of the old bridge had foretold;

Pee-wee's loyalty was so staunch that he did not even consider the things his aunt had said. He was going to save Pepsy from that place and make her the sharer of the fortune that was within their grasp. He made this resolve with the same generous impulse as that which had caused him to put two hundred and fifty dollars within the reach of Mr. Bungel who had boxed his ears.

"I'm lucky," he said to himself as he trudged down to the post office; "I'll fix things all right. I'll show them; I don't care, I'll show them. They won't take her back to that place, not while I'm around."

He did not know how he was going to prevent this but he had unbounded faith in his capacity to fix things and in his good luck.

So, as he trudged along, stepping out of the way of many cars, he came to the home of Doctor Killem.

"Hello, soldier," piped up a little thin voice upon the porch.

"I'm not a soldier," said Pee-wee.

"My father can arrest people," said the little gnome, looking straight ahead of him.

"That doesn't prove I'm a soldier," said Pee-wee.

"You've got a uniform," said the gnome. "I'm not afraid of soldiers. My father's got a lot of money, he's got two hundred and fifty dollars and I'm not going to get dead."

"Where's your father?" Pee-wee asked.

"He's up the road and he's going to catch people and put them in jail."

"Is he?"

"Why do you say 'Is he?' I didn't go to the hospital last night. Do you want to know why?" He asked questions as if they were riddles.

"Yes, why?" Pee-wee asked, half interested.

"Because the bridge burned down. Do you like bridges?"

"It isn't a question of whether a person likes them or not," Pee-wee said; preoccupied with his own sorrow and worry, yet amused in spite of himself at this queer little fellow.

"Yes it is," said Whitie Bungel.

"All right then, it is," said Pee-wee.

"Why did you say it wasn't?"

"Oh, I don't know, I guess I was thinking of something else."

"What were you thinking of?"

"Oh, I don't know—nothing."

"Why did you say you were?"

"You didn't tell me about why you didn't go to the hospital last night."

"I can see things that other folks can't see," Whitie announced.

"You're like Licorice Stick," said Pee-wee.

"He's black," Whitie said.

"I know he is."

"Then how am I like him? I'm white. My name is Whitie."

Pee-wee felt like a prisoner at the bar of justice with this little personage swathed in blankets, staring down at him. His wrappings covered his neck and all that could be seen of him was his face, perfectly motionless. Finally he said as if he were pronouncing sentence.

"Doctor Killem took me in his auto. We had to turn around and come back when we came to the bridge burning down. He's going to take me another way. I saw a man getting dead."

"Where?" Pee-wee asked, his interest somewhat aroused,

"Will you give me that tin thing if I tell you?"

"That isn't a tin thing, it's a compass, it tells you which way to go.

"Can it talk?"

"No, it can't talk."

"Then how can it tell you?"

"It points its finger."

"You're crazy."

"All right," Pee-wee laughed in spite of himself. "You tell me about the man getting dead and I'll give you the tin thing."

"He was lying down in the bushes and wriggling."

"Where? Near the bridge?" Pee-wee asked.

"Doctor Killem didn't see him and he laughed at me. He said I was seeing things. Can you wriggle? I looked back out of the window and saw him."

"Did you tell your father about it?" Pee-wee asked, hardly knowing what to think of this information.

"My mother made him give her the two hundred and fifty dollars so I wouldn't get dead. Do you know what I'm going to be when I grow up?"

"No; what?"

"A giant."

"Well, you'd better hurry up about it."

"Do you know where my father got that two hundred and fifty dollars?"

"Where?"

"It was a prize for catching thieves. You can't catch thieves."

"I know it," Pee-wee said.

"Are you going to be a thief when you grow up?"

"No, I guess not," said Pee-wee.

"You can have three guesses."

"All right, I guess not three times. Now, tell me if you told your father about seeing that man getting dead."

"Yes, and he said I'm always seeing things; everybody says that. Maybe I'll get dead when it rains."

"Don't you believe it," Pee-wee said; "Licorice Stick's been telling you that. Didn't you say you were going to be a giant first?"

"You're not a giant."

Alas, Pee-wee knew this only too well. He knew too that it would be quite impossible to get anything in the way of a connected narrative out of this stern little autocrat. Whether he had actually been "seeing things" or had only seen something in his queer little inner life, who should say? Evidently no one took him very seriously. And this fact did not seem to trouble him at all. Removing the compass cord from about his neck, Pee-wee advanced to proffer his second gift to the Bungel family. Little did that stiff, serious little figure know that the much-needed money which Mrs. Bungel had been wise enough to take from her husband, had come from the same source. Pee-wee searched in vain for any sign of hands in those enveloping blankets. There were no hands, there seemed to be no body even; just two eyes looking straight ahead as if their owner were not going to assist at all in the transfer of the little gift. So Pee-wee laid the compass on the porch rail.

"There you are," he said; "that needle always points to the north."

The two severe eyes stared down at the compass on the rail but their owner made no attempt to reach it as Pee-wee started off. If Pee-wee had not been so worried and preoccupied he would have thought that he had never seen anything so absurdly amusing in all his life.

"Come back and say good-by," the little voice commanded.

Pee-wee returned and stood in the exact spot where he had stood before and said, "Good-by." Although the little pale face did not turn the fraction of an inch, the staring eyes followed Pee-wee as he went along the road.



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE TRAMPLED TRAIL

Pee-wee felt as if he were emerging from some enchanted spot in the "Arabian Nights," abounding with giants and men "getting dead." He had no more belief in what this imperious little imp had told him than he had in the predictions of Licorice Stick, or the homely superstitions of Pepsy.

Indeed, if he had thought seriously of these erratic snapshot bits of information about figures wriggling in the dark and "getting dead" he would never have mentioned these things to Licorice Stick whom he ran plunk into as that aggregation of rags and nonsense sat upon a stone wall up the road engaged in the profitable occupation of watching the passing cars. Licorice Stick's business was contemplating the world and he always attended strictly to business.

"Lordy me!" he said, rolling his eyes, "you don' go nowheres that kid 'e tell you. Dat wrigglin' man, he no man, he a sperrit. Don' you go near dat bridge, you get a spell. Yo keep away f'm dat bridge."

How much this had to do with Pee-wee's actually going to the scene of the fire it would be hard to say. If he had not talked with Whitie he probably would not have gone. At all events, he had nothing else to do and he wanted to think. So he followed the trail through the woods to the highway.

It seemed quite probable that Whitie's jerky sentences were about true, that the doctor had been compelled to turn back by reason of the burning bridge. The fact that Whitie was holding his imperial court on the doctor's porch made this part of his story seem true.

Perhaps it would be about right to say that little Whitie's spasmodic announcements directed Pee-wee in his idle wanderings on that morning when he was fearful and sick at heart.

Long afterwards he remembered with interest that it was little Whitie Bungel (for whose recovery he had sacrificed two hundred and fifty dollars and not a little glory) who put him in the way of the terrible discovery that he made on that fateful day. And the funny thing about it was that the little gnome had given the clue to his benefactor and not his father who knew nothing about the frightful revelation of that morning until it was all over.

So perhaps there is a little god of good turns after all, who, all unseen, administers punches in the nose and pays back two hundred and fifty dollar gifts and so forth, and has the time of his life watching how these things work out. Or a "pay back sperrit" as Licorice Stick might have called him. ...

As Pee-wee approached the scene of the fire he saw in the bushes something which caught his eye. This was a torn fragment of clothing. The bushes were trampled down at the spot. It was not hard for the scout to follow this line of trampled brush which was so disordered that he thought it could not have been caused by a walking or fleeing person. It was well away from the area where the men had fought the flames.

Here and there something brown and sticky on the leaves caught the scout's eye. Some one had crawled stealthily through here. Or else dragged himself through. Pee-wee shuddered at this thought. He examined the trampled channel more carefully. And from this examination he was satisfied of one fact which made him uneasy, apprehensive.

The weight which had crushed the bush down had been a prone, dead weight. At intervals of perhaps three or four feet were gathered wounded strands of the tall grass, as if some groping hand had reached ahead, gathering and pulling on them. Pulling a helpless weight. Pee-wee knew this for he saw with the eyes of a scout.



CHAPTER XXXIV

THE TRAIL'S END

This trampled channel petered out in a comparatively bare area across which was more brush. Almost hidden in this was a tumbled-down shack, hardly bigger than a closet, in which boys who had been wont to dive from the old bridge had donned their bathing suits. It had been thrown together as a storage place for fishing tackle and crab nets and these latter, rotten and gray with age still hung in the dank, musty place.

Pee-wee paused a moment, irresolute, nervous. He had a strange feeling, a feeling of apprehension which amounted to a certainty. And as he paused two charred bits of timber from the old bridge, still held together by a rusty brace, creaked, and the creaking seemed loud in the stillness of desolation.

A rusty can, the discarded receptacle of bait, lay at his feet, and in his hesitation and transient fear, he kicked it, and followed it, kicking it again. Then, banishing such cracked-up excuses for delay he put aside his fears and went around the tiny shelter to where the rotted door hung loose upon one broken hinge.

Within lay a human figure. The hair was wet and matted and prickly leaves were stuck in it. The face was streaked with blood, the clothes were torn. One of the legs lay in a very unnatural attitude. The eyes were wide open and staring with a glassy look at some rough fishing rods which lay across the rafters above. One of the arms was outstretched and the hand lay open as if its owner were saying, "Here I am, you see." There was something very appalling about that dumb attitude of speech and welcome when the voice and the eyes could not speak. For he had "got dead," this poor troubled creature "got dead" after committing one hideous crime to hide another.

The people in the nearest house along the now deserted highway came at Pee-wee's breathless summons and gazed down silently but would not touch the figure with outstretched arm and opened hand that seemed to say, "Step in, you're welcome, here I am."

So they called the coroner and the body of Deadwood Gamely was borne away and it was soon known that he had died from injuries received in falling down the embankment which he was scrambling up after setting fire to one of the supports of the old bridge.

He had not done this horrible thing willfully, at least not for money to spend. That very day a warrant was issued for his arrest in Baxter City for embezzlement of funds which he had stolen from the bank in which he had been employed. But the angel of death had traveled faster than the law.

That the contractors, or one of them, who wished to benefit the county with a modern bridge had offered Gamely pay to do this dreadful deed of arson seemed certain. But it seemed equally certain that the wretched boy had balked at this frightful enterprise, putting it off from day to day, until discovery and arrest for his other crime stared him in the face. He had waited till the very night before the day on which his petty thefts would be revealed. Then in frantic desperation he had taken this only means of acquiring a sum of money quickly. No one could say this for a certainty.

But in a story where we have witnessed so many good turns may we not dismiss poor Deadwood Gamely and his tragic end from our thoughts with the hope, nay, even the confidence, that his second crime was not a deed of willing choice? There was more money misappropriated by Tom, Dick and Harry, before the new steel bridge was up than ever poor Deadwood Gamely, with his silly clothes and hat, would have dared to steal. And so the tax rate went up and Commissioner Somebody—or—other got a new automobile and County Engineer Grabson built a big house and so on, and so on, and so on.

But before the new million-dollar bridge was finished the Pepsy Roadside Rest was flourishing as the only real "monolopy" in Everdoze.



CHAPTER XXXV

EXIT

So it befell that the big black wagon belonging to the brick orphan home came and turned around and went back again. It got in the way of all the automobiles that were headed for The Home of Fresh Doughnuts (a new sign) and was a nuisance generally. The men who drove it didn't buy so much as a gumdrop.

But what cared the partners? For such a business were they doing as would make the Standard Oil Company turn green with envy. Their financial rating was so high that you couldn't see it without a telescope. Every time there was a strike over at the new bridge the partners reaped a profit from the delay. Thus labor unconsciously put business in the way of monopolies.

And so the great enterprise prospered. The advertising department had now two steady employees—Licorice Stick and Wiggle. Licorice Stick covered the road up as far as Berryville with a huge placard hung from his neck. Wiggle proudly flew an inflated balloon from his tail bearing the appropriate reminder HOT DOGS AT THE PEPSY REST.

One evening, oh, it must have been about six o'clock, the weary partners were closing up their little shack for the night. Pepsy was counting the money and Pee-wee was eating the cookies that were left over. For he was conscientious and must open shop with a fresh supply each day. Sometimes he would have a dozen or more to eat, but he did it bravely—from a sense of duty. A scout is dutiful.

Presently there hove in sight a large figure, walking.

"Oh, it's Mr. Jensen," said Pepsy; "hurry up and finish the cookies or he'll want them; he always does that."

Mr. Jensen came up mopping his forehead.

"Any lemonade left?" he asked.

"There's about one glass," Pee-wee said.

In accordance with his invariable daily custom, Mr. Jensen bought up the remainder of stock, drank several glasses of cider, and chatted with the partners.

"Ain't heard of any rivals, have you?" he asked. "We've got the whole detour eating out of our hands," said Pee-wee, which was literally true.

"Makin' money fast, huh? You takin' good care of this little gal of mine?"

Pepsy smiled at him and he put his arm around her and kissed her and said, "If he don't take good care of you, you just come and let me know."

Then he winked at Pee-wee.

When he was gone something reminded Pee-wee to look into the big lemonade cooler and make sure that it was empty. It was not quite empty, there being about ten lemon pits, a slice of rind, and a small piece of ice left in the bottom of it. But this was worth going after and Pee-wee went after it. With all his strength he raised the goodly cooler to a position above his head and tilted it to his mouth. His arms trembled under its weight, and his hands slipped upon its cold, beady sides. The several drops of highly diluted lemonade trickled down into his mouth but the flavory pits and rind remained at bay at the bottom of the cooler.

They would not roll but they might fall. Pee-wee held the cooler up to a perfectly perpendicular position above his upturned face. Then, oh, horrors! The wet cooler slipped through his hands and the curly head of Pee-wee Harris disappeared within it. If the postman who found him wrestling valiantly with a banana and clinging with the other hand, could only have seen him in this new and terrible predicament!

And thus the curly head and terribly frowning countenance of Scout Harris disappears out of our story into a new realm of joy. ...



THE END



Other books by Percy Keese Fitzhugh (7 Sep 1876 - 5 Jul 1950). Note that characters from each series crossover to or are mentioned in the others.

1 - Pee-wee Harris - 1922 2 - Pee-wee Harris On The Trail - 1922 3 - Pee-wee Harris In Camp - 1922 4 - Pee-wee Harris In Luck - 1922 5 - Pee-wee Harris Adrift - 1922 6 - Pee-wee Harris F.O.B. Bridgeboro - 1923 7 - Pee-wee Harris: Fixer - 1924 8 - Pee-wee Harris As Good As His Word - 1925 9 - Pee-wee Harris: Mayor for a Day - 1926 10 - Pee-wee Harris and The Sunken Treasure - 1927 11 - Pee-wee Harris On The Briny Deep - 1928 12 - Pee-wee Harris In Darkest Africa - 1929 13 - Pee-wee Harris Turns Detective - 1930

1 - Roy Blakeley - 1920 2 - Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp - 1920 3 - Roy Blakeley Pathfinder - 1920 4 - Roy Blakeley's Camp On Wheels - 1920 5 - Roy Blakeley's Silver Fox Patrol - 1920 6 - Roy Blakeley's Motor Caravan - 1921 7 - Roy Blakeley Lost Strayed or Stolen - 1921 8 - Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike - 1922 9 - Roy Blakeley at The Haunted Camp - 1922 10 - Roy Blakeley's Funny-Bone Hike - 1923 11 - Roy Blakeley's Tangled Trail - 1924 12 - Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail - 1925 13 - Roy Blakeley's Elastic Hike - 1926 14 - Roy Blakeley's Roundabout Hike - 1927 15 - Roy Blakeley's Happy-Go-Lucky Hike - 1928 16 - Roy Blakeley's Go-As-You Please Hike - 1929

1 - Tom Slade - Boy Scout - 1915 2 - Tom Slade At Temple Camp - 1917 3 - Tom Slade On The River - 1917 4 - Tom Slade With The Colors - 1918 5 - Tom Slade On A Transport - 1918 6 - Tom Slade With The Boys Over There - 1918 7 - Tom Slade' Motor-cycle Dispatch Bearer - 1918 8 - Tom Slade With The Flying Corps - 1919 9 - Tom Slade at Black Lake - 1920 10 - Tom Slade On Mystery Trail - 1921 11 - Tom Slade's Double Dare - 1922 12 - Tom Slade On Overlook Mountain - 1923 13 - Tom Slade Picks a Winner - 1924 14 - Tom Slade At Bear Mountain - 1925 15 - Tom Slade: Forest Ranger - 1926 16 - Tom Slade At Shadow Isle - 1928 17 - Tom Slade In The North Woods - 1927 18 - Tom Slade in the Haunted Cavern - 1929 19 - Tom Slade Parachute Jumper - 1930

1 - Westy Martin - 1924 2 - Westy Martin In The Yellowstone - 1924 3 - Westy Martin In The Rockies - 1925 4 - Westy Martin On The Santa Fe Trail - 1926 5 - Westy Martin On The Old Indian Trail - 1928 6 - Westy Martin In The Land Of The Purple Sage - 1929 7 - Westy Martin On The Mississippi - 1930 8 - Westy Martin In The Sierras - 1931

THE END