LOCKED DOORS
Like the ground-hog, Pee-wee did not emerge again until the occasion was
more propitious. For fully an hour the car ran at high speed which
afforded him some hope that the strong arm of the law might intervene.
But the strong arm of the law was apparently under its pillow in
delicious slumber. Not a snag did those bloody fugitives encounter in
their flight.
At last the car slowed down and Pee-wee could feel that it was turning
into another road. His unwitting captors were evidently either nervous
or sleepy, for they talked but little.
The car proceeded slowly now, and when our hero ventured to steal a
quick glimpse from under his covering he perceived that they were going
along a road so dark and narrow that it seemed like a leafy tunnel. The
somber darkness and utter silence of this sequestered region made the
deed of these outlaws seem all the blacker. There was now no doubt
whatever of the criminal nature of their bold enterprise. For surely no
law-abiding, civilized beings lived in such a remote wilderness as now
closed them in.
Soon the car came to a stop, and Pee-wee's thumping heart almost came to
a stop at the same time. Suppose they should lift the robe? What would
they do? And quite as much to the point, what should _he_ do? A sudden
impulse to throw off his kindly camouflage and run for all he was worth,
seized him. But he thought of those seventy pistols and two blackjacks
and refrained. Should he face them boldly, like the hero in a story book
and say, "Ha, ha, you are foiled. The eyes of the scout have followed
you in your flight and you are caught!"
No he would not do that. A scout is supposed to be cautious. He would
remain under the buffalo robe.
Presently he heard the unmistakable sound and felt the unmistakable
feeling of the car being run into some sort of a shelter. The voices of
the thieves sounded different, more hollow, as voices heard in small
quarters indoors. A little suggestion of an echo to them.
Pee-wee Harris, scout, did not know where he was or what was going on,
but he _felt_ that four walls surrounded him. The plot was growing
thicker. And it was suffocating under that heavy robe, now that there
was no free air blowing about it.
"Where's the stuff?" one of the men asked.
"On the back seat," said the other.
Pee-wee trembled.
"Oh, no, I guess it's on the floor," the man added. "I think I put the
silver cup under the back seat--"
Pee-wee shuddered. So they had been stealing silver cups.
"Either there or--oh, here it is."
Pee-wee breathed again.
Then he heard no more voices. But he heard other sounds. He heard the
creaking of a heavy rolling door. He heard a sound as if it were being
bolted or fastened on the inside. Then he heard the slamming of another
door and a muffled, metallic sound as of someone locking it on the
outside. Then he heard footsteps, fainter, fainter.... Then he heard a
sound which seemed to him familiar. He could not liken it to anything in
particular, but it sounded familiar, a kind of clanking, metallic sound.
Then he heard a voice say, "Let me handle her, give her a shove, hold
her down, that's right."
Pee-wee's blood ran cold. They were killing someone out there; some poor
captive maiden, perhaps....
Then he heard no more.