His hands played nervously with his old cap, he bit his lips, and tried to repress the torrent that was surging in him. The outlandish old gray sweater with its rolling collar bulging up around his small, jerking throat, did not seem comical now. It made him the picture of pathos. He did not dare try to explain; that wonderful old man would only catch him in another trap and perhaps send him to state prison. His breath came quick and fast; he could no more speak than he could escape. He wished that Roy Blakeley were there, and Tom Slade, who knew how to talk to grown-up men and....

"Yes, and I'll pin the merit badge over your mouth if you don't keep still," he heard a hearty voice say. "Sure, wintergreen is good to eat!

Go and eat some poison ivy for all I care. Do you think I'm going to be pa.s.sing out merit badges for helping me to find my own car?"

"I wonder where they went?"

"I should worry where they went; I'm thankful we found the car. Maybe they've gone to join The Bandit of Harrowing Highway; he'll have pistols enough to go around, anyway; seventy was it?"

"And a couple of blackjacks."

"Well, we've got him beaten for a romance of the road. Let's go in this house and see if we can scare up some gasoline. Jim, you and I ought to go into the movies--we'd have a six reeler called The Kids of Kidder Lake or Fido of Frying-pan Island. How's that strike you? Most of those kids don't need any pistols, they can kill time without them. We've got some dead ones over there, Jim, only they haven't got sense enough to lie down. What do you bet we don't get some gas in this house? Well, here goes for a knock on the door by Ned the Nabber,--_one_ pistol."

Pee-wee held his breath, listening. What could this mean? Seventy pistols? Blackjacks? His old friend, The Bandit of Harrowing Highway?

Dead ones? Was he indeed in the spell of some horrible nightmare? What on earth could this mean?

In a kind of trance he heard a knocking on the door and a lot of hearty, clamoring, bantering voices. They did not seem at all like robbers and cut-throats. They were not stealthy--a couple of million miles from it.

Pee-wee rubbed his glistening eyes with that old cap that he held and blinked to make sure he was awake.

CHAPTER x.x.x

FACE TO FACE

Still in a daze, Pee-wee saw the old man step to the door; he heard a hearty, good-humored voice asking about gasoline. "If you could just put us on the track of some," the voice said; "we're good at tracking."

Tracking! Pee-wee's eyes opened. Tracking?

"Well, could we use your 'phone, then?" he heard.

The next thing Pee-wee knew, half a dozen boys and young men spilled into the room. All but one of them, and that was Jim Burton, were in scout attire. Pee-wee stood gaping at them as if they had dropped from the clouds.

Whatever their wee hour call meant they seemed all to be in high good-humor and amused at their own adventure. One of them, a scoutmaster as Pee-wee knew, was particularly offhand and jovial and seemed to fill the room with his breezy talk. Peter Piper stared like one transfixed; they were scouts, the kind he had read about, the kind that were on the cover of the handbook! He backed into a corner so as not to get in their way....

"Yes sir, we've had some night of it," said the young scoutmaster, falling with mock weariness into a chair, throwing one knee over the other and tossing his hat very neatly onto one foot. "My car is stalled up the road in front of the next house. Lucky they ran out of gas.

There's a sign up there says, 'road closed,' but I can't see anything the matter with it. Anyway, they ran out of gas and then ran out of the machine as I make out. They deserted it when the supply gave out, I suppose. All's well that ends well, only we need gas.

"I bet--I bet we've covered a hundred and fifty miles of territory to-night; what d'you say, Bill?" He didn't pause long enough to give Bill, or the Justice either, a chance to speak. "We saw the light in your window and just came in to see if you had a gallon or so of gas.

We've got another car up yonder. Yes, sir, we've got The Bandit of Harrowing Highway looking like a tame canary for adventures; hey Scout Nick? Nick's our signal shark--"

Peter Piper looked at Nick with humble reverence, and backed farther into the corner. He could not take his eyes from him.

Justice Fee was about to say, "Here is one of the culprits," but he did not get the chance. Scoutmaster Ned had the floor, also the walls and the ceiling. He seemed not to care anything about the culprits. All he seemed to care about was getting his Hunkajunk car back and recounting their adventures. Perhaps he was even a little grateful to the culprits for affording them such opportunity for adventure. At all events, he kicked his hat around on the end of his foot and filled the room with his quick, breezy talk.

"Yes sir, we rode to Bridgeboro, New Jersey, got a prize cup for my kindergarten cla.s.s to try for, looked in at a show, saw a guy with a lot of pistols, got home at about, oh I don't know--rowed over to the island where we're camping, and these two kids rowed back to get the cup out of the car, and found the car gone and sent a signal that n.o.body saw and we came along in this fellow's Packard. Well, we've got the old Hunkajunk back, anyway, haven't we kids? I'll say we have. These kids told the world only the world was asleep or something. Well, we've had pretty good luck at that, I'll say; we found the car, the school burned down--"

Suddenly, like a burst of thunder rose the recovered voice of Pee-wee Harris, while in frantic accompaniment his feet beat the floor and his small arms swung in wild excitement. With his deadly vocal artillery he silenced the breezy talk of Scoutmaster Ned and set the company aghast with his triumphant clamor.

"I've got an insulation--I mean an inspiration--listen--keep still--everybody! I'm the one that--that fixed it so you could have all those adventures--I'm the one--I got into the wrong car--in Bridgeboro--I saw that show and I thought you were the ones that had pistols and now I know that you're not murderers--because I was half asleep and I came out because I hate educational films but I like bandits, but I don't like real ones--"

"He likes _reel_ ones," suggested Safety First.

"--And I met a thief and he was disguised as a manual training teacher and now he's foiled because I asked him to help me take Mr. Bartlett's car back and it's already back, because this is a different car and I was under--I was disguised under the buffalo robe--and I wrote a letter under there and pinned it to a piece of sandwich with a safety pin that I was being kidnapped--you can ask anybody so that shows I'm not a bandit and I can prove I'm a scout--I don't care what anybody says because you can hang an apple on a string and I can bite it without touching it with my hands, and I'm the only one in my patrol that can do that and I'm not an enemy to you because if that school burned down I'm glad too and I've got seven merit badges and the bronze cross and if you find that letter I wrote you can see how that piece of sandwich fits my mouth where I bit it and that's better than finger-prints and I can prove it--I don't care what anybody says--I got into the wrong car and even the smartest man in the world--even--even--even George Washington could do that. I've got seven merit badges," he concluded breathlessly as a climax to his outburst.

With an air of profound solemnity Scoutmaster Ned arose and made the full scout salute to the mascot of the Raven Patrol, F.B.T. B.S.A. "May I ask the name of the hero who was disguised as my buffalo robe?" he asked.

"Pee-wee Harris, only size doesn't count," said the scream of Bridgeboro's crack troop.

"Quite so," said Scoutmaster Ned; "George Washington might have been small once himself. Am I right, Nick?"

"Positively," said Nick.

"And the manual training bandit? May I ask about him?"

"He's _foiled_," said Pee-wee. "I met him when I escaped from your garage; he gave me a lead pencil and he said he'd help me take the car back to Mr. Bartlett that took me to the show in his car. Gee whiz, you get sleepy sometimes, don't you?"

"Very, but I don't get a chance to sleep much with bronze cross scouts and manual training teachers to keep me on the move."

"Gee whiz, I'm sorry I woke you up."

"Not at all, the pleasure is mine," said Scoutmaster Ned. "I live in a den of wild Indians; I seldom sleep. And our friend escaped? It doesn't speak very well for teachers, does it? School--"

"Gee whiz, I'll help anybody to foil a school."

"Good. Come over here, Pee-wee Harris, and let us get at the details of this adventure; I have a hunch that you and I are going to be friends.

You are a--what shall I say?--a bandit after my own heart. So you have seven merit badges and the bronze cross, eh? Do you think you could steal--excuse me--_win_ a silver cup?"

"Can you drink out of it?" Pee-wee demanded.

"Positively--lemonade, grape juice, root beer--"

"Malted milk also. And a sandwich goes with it. I think that cup was made for a bronze cross scout. Come over here a minute."

Pee-wee went over and stood between the knees of Scoutmaster Ned. "He's mine, Bill," said Ned to his fellow scoutmaster, "I saw him first."

Meanwhile you should have seen the face of Justice of the Peace Fee. He sat at his desk, with his long legs projecting through the middle, a cigar screwed away over into the corner of his mouth, contemplating Pee-wee with a shrewd, amused twinkle. Not a word did he say as Scoutmaster Ned asked questions of the Raven's mascot, while the others listened and laughed.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

ALONE

But there was one there who smiled almost fearfully, as if doubting his privilege of mirth in that gay, strange company. He smiled, not as one of them, but in silent awe, and did not dare to laugh aloud. He hoped that they would not notice him and tell him to go home. He had dreamed of some day seeing such wondrous boys as these, and here they were before him, all about him, in their natty khaki, self-possessed, unabashed, merry, free. Was not that enough for Peter Piper of Piper's Crossroads?