"Who--who's there?" he said.

He moved again, and was startled as his foot slipped off the charred timber on which he was walking. The brisk autumn wind was playing havoc among the debris, blowing damp pages over faster than anyone could turn them. It played among a burned chest of old examination papers.

scattering them like dried leaves. Correct or incorrect, they were all the same now. Pee-wee liked this roving, unruly wind, having its own way in that dominion of restriction. He liked its gay disregard of all this solemn claptrap.

But now he heard clearly the sound of footsteps among the ruins, footsteps picking their way as it seemed to him, through the uncertain support of all that various disorder. Groping, careful footfalls.

"Who's there?" he asked. And the only answer was a gust of wind.

Could it be those thieves in search of him? Or might it be the ghost of some princ.i.p.al or teacher lingering still among these remnants and reminders of authority?

Step, step--step.

Then from around the corner of a charred, up-ended platform appeared a face. A face with a cap drawn low over it. And presently a dark form emerged.

"Who--who are--you?" Pee-wee stammered.

"I'm a teacher as was here," the stranger said. "You needn't be scared of me, kiddo."

"I was just kind of looking around," Pee-wee explained apologetically.

"Here's a pencil fur yer," the stranger said. "I jes' picked it up."

Pee-wee accepted this as a flag of truce, and felt somewhat rea.s.sured. A man who would give him a pencil surely meant no harm. He had as much right to be there as Pee-wee had.

"If you were a teacher here I shouldn't think you'd say 'as was,'"

Pee-wee ventured, "But gee whiz," he added, "I don't care how you say it." No teacher had ever before called him kiddo and he rather liked it.

"Maybe you taught manual training, hey?" Pee-wee said. "Because they're kind of different."

"There's where you hit it," said the stranger.

"Manual training?"

"Right the first time, and I'm just sort of collecting some of my junk."

"That's one thing about me, I'm good at guessing," Pee-wee said. "I kinder knew you were that. Manual training, that's my favorite study because it isn't a study at all. I made a bird-house, I did, in manual training, a dandy big one."

"Bird-houses is a good thing to make," said the manual training teacher.

Pee-wee could not see his new acquaintance very well or the bundle which he carried. If the teacher had been after his junk he seemed to have been fortunate in finding it, for he had collected a considerable amount of booty. Indeed, he had but a minute before succeeded in disinterring the safe which had been in the princ.i.p.al's office, but here he had met with disappointment. He had, however, hit upon a microscope of some value from the equipment of the student laboratory and he had found a lady's handbag which he seemed to think worth keeping.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he asked of Pee-wee.

CHAPTER XIII

A FRIEND IN NEED

"Do you want me to let you into a secret?" Pee-wee said. "I know where there's a stolen automobile. Maybe you'd like to help me take it back to its owner, hey? If you do you'll get an honourable mention in our troop-book. I was carried away in it by two thieves who didn't know I was in the car, because I was disguised, sort of, under the buffalo robe. Do you want to help me foil them?"

The manual training teacher seemed interested but a bit incredulous. He looked Pee-wee over and said, "what's all this?"

"Maybe you don't believe me but it's true," Pee-wee said. "Do you know how to run a car?"

"Anything from a flivver up," said the stranger.

"Shh," said Pee-wee, "this one is away, way up. It's a super six Hunkajunk, it belongs to a man where I live, in Bridgeboro, New Jersey."

"Well, what are you doing here?" the manual training teacher asked.

"I was kind of kidnapped accidentally. They did it but they didn't know it. They've got pistols and blackjacks and things and I heard them talk about stealing. I bet I'd have heard a lot more only my head was under the buffalo robe. If you'll help me we can circ.u.m--what do you call it--you know--circ.u.m--"

The teacher did not know. But his interest was aroused at this whispered tale of armed bandits and of a big stolen car. Pee-wee completed the tale in breathless excitement. He told all, from the beginning. "They locked it in," he concluded, "and went away; but one of the doors, the big one, was locked on the inside and I opened it. Anybody can take the car out. Those men have gone away across the lake. If you'll drive it to Bridgeboro you can stay at my house and have breakfast and I'll tell Mr.

Bartlett that you helped me, and gee whiz, they'll thank, you a lot.

Maybe you know about scouts because manual training teachers know a lot about scouts on account of scouts making bird-houses and all things like that, and so maybe you know about good turns. That'll be a peach of a good turn. And if I tell about it you'll get a kind of a medal from our troop with your name on it. What's your name? Mine's Walter Harris, but the fellows in my troop call me Pee-wee, but I should worry about them.

Will you help me? What's your name?"

"Mr. Swiper," said the stranger, rather thoughtfully; "let's go and look it over."

He was certainly considering the proposition and Pee-wee accompanied him back to the lake, keeping up a running fire of enthusiastic encouragement and representing to him the delight and self-satisfaction of circ.u.mventing a pair of scoundrels. "They've got pistols and everything," he said as a clincher, "and if they'd steal a car they'd kill somebody, wouldn't they?"

"Seventy pistols is a good many," said Mr. Swiper, incredulously.

"Sure it is," said Pee-wee excitedly; "it's more than Jesse James had. I guess they belong to a big band of thieves, hey? Maybe they've got a--a--a haunt on the other side of that lake, hay? Now you can see it's good to go to the movies, hey? Because we could never circ.u.m--foil them if I hadn't, hey? They drove it right away from in front of the theater.

Anyway," he added excitedly as he trotted along, "I'm glad I met you because now I don't have to wake up the police or anything, hey? And I bet Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett will be surprised when they see us bringing it back, won't they? I'll show you where we have our meetings."

Mr. Swiper was not carried off his feet by Pee-wee's excited talk. He was thoughtful and preoccupied.

"That's one thing I have no use for--thieves," Pee-wee said. "Gee whiz, I never took a ride with thieves before. But anyway it's going to be all right now. We'll just toot the horn in front of the house when we get there, hey? And I'll say--I'll say--'Here's your car Mr. Bartlett.' And then I'll introduce you to him, hey? And I bet he'll--anyway, you wouldn't take anything, would you? Money or anything like that?"

"Don't insult me," said Mr. Swiper.

"I didn't mean it," Pee-wee said apologetically; "scouts are like that, they won't take anything for a service, but eats don't count, you can take eats. But I mean money----"

"Don't speak of money again," said Mr. Swiper.

CHAPTER XIV

SAVED!

Thanks to Pee-wee, the door of the rustic lakeside garage stood invitingly open.

"I won't--I won't say anything about money; gee whiz, you needn't have any fear," Pee-wee said, making a play for his companion's good-will; "gee, I wouldn't do that--I wouldn't. But you could take a medal, couldn't you? A scout good-will medal?" he added anxiously.