ACTION
"Well then I say let's send up a signal," said Nick hurriedly, "the
fellows at camp will see it and everybody else for miles around will see
it. Every telegraph operator along the railroad can read it. Forget
about scouts stealing cars and do what I tell you. Hustle up to the
police station and tell them about it so they can't say we didn't report
it, then meet me at the town hall."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to use the old search-light if it will work. It hasn't been
used since the night of the armistice when they lighted up the flag with
it. Climb in through the broken window on the side and come up into the
cupola. Don't tell Chief Bungelheimer or he'll say it was his idea. My
father's on the town committee, it's all right, hustle now, get the
police department off your hands and maybe we can do something--no
telling. Remember, the side window, the one that's broken. And look out
for the ladder, it's rotten. Hurry up, beat it!"
Fido Norton hurried to the police station in back of Ezra Corbett's
store and aroused Officer Dopeson who was at the desk waiting for
out-of-town speeders to be brought in. In a kind of waking dream the
officer heard an excited voice shout, "Mr. Ned Garrison's car is stolen
from the shed down by the lake."
When Officer Dopeson was fully aware of this noisy intrusion, the
intruder had disappeared. He lost no time, however, in setting the usual
machinery in motion. By a continuous series of movements of the receiver
rack on the telephone he aroused Miss Dolly Bobbitt, the night operator,
from the depths of the novel she was reading, and notified the Police
Department in East Ketchem across the lake to be on watch for the car.
The police department over there said that he would be glad to do that.
The police departments of Conner's Junction and Rocky Hollow were also
notified.
A long distance call to the New York police warned them to be on the
lookout. Blinksboro, on the main road, did not answer. Knapp's
Crossroads had gone to a harvest festival and forgotten to come back.
No answer. Lonehaven couldn't get the name of the car but said it would
watch out for a Plunkabunk. Wakeville said no car could possibly get
through there as there wasn't any road. Miss Dolly Bobbitt returned to
her novel.
And meanwhile the scout raised a mighty hand up into the vast, starry
heaven, like some giant traffic cop....
"Pull that canvas cover off it," said Nick to his comrade who had just
come up the ladder. "The blamed thing's all rotten anyway, I guess.
Strike a match and find where the switch is. Look out you don't slip in
the hole. Look at all the confetti and stuff," he added hurriedly, as
the tiny flame of the match illuminated a small area of the little
cupola. "War's over, huh?"
There upon the floor were strewn the gay many-colored little paper
particles, plastered against the wood by many a rain, mementos of the
night when even West Ketchem arose and poured this festive, fluttering
stuff down necks and into windows. Someone who had thought to throw the
search-light on the flag across the street, had spilled some of
insinuating stuff in the little cupola. How old and stale, and a part of
the forgotten past, the war seemed! And these once gay memorials of its
ending were all washed out and as colorless as the big spiders that
claimed the little cupola as their own. It smelled musty up there. And
whenever a match was lighted the spiders started in their webs. A lonely
bat, settled for the winter, hung like an old stiff dishrag from a beam.
"Did you find the switch?" Nick asked, as he fumbled hastily with the
big brass light. "All right, wait till I point the lens down, now turn
it."
There was no light.
"Did you turn it?"
"Sure."
"Pull it out, maybe it works that way."
There was no light. Norton paused in suspense while Nick shook the brass
case and jarred the wiring to overcome a slight short circuit if there
was any there.
"All right, turn it again."
There was no light, and the two scouts stood baffled and heavy hearted
in the lonely darkness.