"Maybe you'll be able to catch them, hey?" Connie said. "Anyway, I hope so, because one of them hit this fellow a good whack on the head."

"So?" said the man. "Well, we'll take care of that pair. It won't be hard, with their pictures. They're a couple of the most desperate auto thieves and highwaymen in this state. You boys did a fine thing. You deserve great credit."

"That's nothing," Pee-wee said; "once when----"

"Which way did they go?" the men asked.

So then we told them all there was to tell, and about our car, and about how we were brought out to Ridgeboro by mistake. They were in so much of a hurry that I thought they'd just let our car roll down into the water, so that they could get by. But anyway, they didn't do that. I guess they liked us, because we did them a good turn.

As soon as Westy gave them the film out of his pocket camera, they lifted a big heavy log across the tracks near the water. They said they thought they could let the car roll easily against that, without any danger of its going on down into the water. You bet we were nervous till we saw them do it, and then we realized that probably those thieves could have done the same thing, except that they didn't care anything about other people's property.

The men thought that the two fellows would cut through the woods and come out at a town named Skunk Hollow. Ozone Valley, that was the new name of it. So we all went in the two cars to that place, because a train stopped there at about half-past eight, and they thought that maybe those fellows would take the train.

I don't know which went faster, the automobiles or Pee-wee's tongue.

Anyway, Pee-wee's tongue was running on high. He sat behind me in the big machine, wedged in between two big deputy sheriffs, and he told every heroic act that scouts have done since the movement started.

Blamed if I know how he finds those things out, but he does. He gave them Westy's whole history and told how Tom Slade won the gold cross and how burglars and highwaymen weren't safe any more, on account of the Boy Scouts. Every time they told him it was wonderful, he would say, "That's nothing," and come right back with a five reeler. Oh, boy, I thought I'd die, but I guess the sheriffs liked it. Anyway, they laughed a lot.

Pee-wee told them about a scout in the dismal north (that's what he called it) that rescued a maiden. He told them a maiden was something like a girl, "only more kind of pale and weak and helpless, like." I nearly doubled up.

But anyway, he didn't mention cooking.

CHAPTER XXII

RAILROADING

When we got to the Ozone Valley station, there wasn't anything there, but the ozone and a couple of milk cans. The men searched all around in the woods and under the freight platform, but they couldn't find the two fellows.

"Don't you get discouraged," Pee-wee told them; "often I couldn't find things and then later they'd turn up."

"Oh, they'll turn up," the sheriff said; "and they'll _go_ up, too. Just give us a chance to get those films developed."

Pretty soon the train came along, going toward Skiddyunk. It was a way train and I guess it stopped every now and then to change its mind. It had a couple of baggage cars and a couple of freight cars and a refrigerator car and one pa.s.senger car at the end. There were only a few people in the car.

The sheriffs searched the whole train, but they couldn't find the two fellows anywhere. They even searched the refrigerator car, but I didn't think they'd be there, because they were fresh enough without going on ice.

The conductor was a big fat man; he was awful nice. When the sheriffs told him about us, he laughed and said, "That's funny; I have a bill for that car; I'm going to pick it up to-night."

I said, "We heard there wasn't a freight on the Slopson Branch till Tuesday morning. We don't exactly want to go back yet."

He said, "Well now, Sonny, you see I haven't got any say about it. I get a bill and that's all there is to it. There might be a freight out of Slopson to-morrow or the next day, and then again, there might not. You could come near sending the whole of Slopson by Parcels Post. I've heard about you kids and I've got word to look after you. You're mighty lucky you didn't all go kerflop into the lake."

"How soon is there another train through here?" the sheriff asked him.

"Twelve-fifteen, if she's on time," the conductor said; "she's a through from Buffalo."

"Believe me," I said; "that's one town I know something about--Buffalo.

I'll never forget Buffalo, 398 Mls." They all laughed.

"She doesn't stop here, does she?" the sheriff asked.

"Stops at Skiddyunk for water," the conductor said. "She pa.s.ses us down at Red Hill siding."

The sheriff said, "I guess two of us had better watch the station here and be on the safe side in case she slows down, and the other two will go down in one of the machines and keep an eye out at Skiddyunk. They might get on there. We'll probably beat you to Skiddyunk, but if we don't, nab 'em if they get on. They're going to try to get away from these parts, I know that."

I was just thinking we'd have to hike back along the road to our little Home Sweet Home, when the conductor said, "Hop on, you boys."

When we got to Skiddyunk, the sheriff and one of his men were already there. But there wasn't any sign of the two fellows. Then the train started backing up along the Slopson Branch and the two sheriffs stayed on it. Pretty soon we were back almost to where we had started from.

There wasn't any station at Ridgeboro, but the sheriffs looked all around the closed-up store, in the wood-shed and under the platform.

Then the train backed down the siding and very gently bunked into the Brewster's Centre car. There were men swinging lights and shouting to each other, while one coupled our car to the train. Then there was a lot more shouting and swinging lights and then we started.

We stood on the back platform of our own car and I could see the moon just beginning to shine on the part of the lake that we were moving away from. The wheels rattled, rattled; and it seemed kind of as if the car was saying _so long, so long, so long_----

Pretty soon, away across the lake, we could see a light and we knew it was the fire at _Camp Smile Awhile_. Then we pa.s.sed the store that was all closed up tight and I said, "so long, store. So long, _Camp Smile Awhile_." And while we stood out there on the back platform, the wheels kept saying, "S'long, s'long, s'long, s'long, s'long...."

Gee whiz, I was sorry.

CHAPTER XXIII

CRAZY STUFF

One thing sure, those auto thieves weren't on our train; they didn't get on at any of those three places, Ozone Valley or Ridgeboro or Skiddyunk.

The two sheriffs got off at Skiddyunk again, to keep a watch when the late train came through. The Skiddyunk Station was all dark. As we left it the wheels kept saying, "s'long, s'long," and pretty soon we couldn't see it at all, and I knew that the country where we had had so much fun was way back there in the dark and that probably we'd never see it any more.

That was a single-track railroad and as we stood on the back platform, we could see the two shiny rails going away back into the dark.

"Let's go and sit down," I said; "I'm tired."

We had a shoe box full of eats that the girls at _Camp Smile Awhile_ had given us and, yum, yum, those sandwiches were good.

Pretty soon a brakeman came staggering through, holding onto the seats.

He had a red lantern and he hung it on the back platform. "So's the flyer won't bunk her nose into us," he said.

"Reg'lar private car, you kids got," he said.

I said, "When do you think we'll get to Bridgeboro, New Jersey?"

"Depends on the out trains from New York," he said; "we get in about three. No telling how long you'll stand in the yards. If you're picked up pretty quick, you ought to be home in time for breakfast. But there's no telling with a dead special."