THE REWARD
Pee-wee was so excited he could hardly speak. “We don’t have to hurry,”
he said, “because nobody saw me--I didn’t make a sound. Listen, it’s
bandits! I crept around to the other side of the place and there isn’t
any canvas there at all. The top is all covered with brush like you said
and underneath there’s a couple of blankets where people sleep.
_Listen_--there are pistols--three of them--one great big one--I _saw_
them. And I saw a mask or something like bandits use--black. Even a
shotgun I saw--listen--there’s nobody in there now, but you can bet I
didn’t wait.”
“Are you sure you’re not dreaming?” I asked him.
“Do you think I don’t know a dream when I see one?” he said. “Do you
call a shotgun and pistols and a burglar’s mask all things like that a
dream? And you needn’t say that it’s somebody hunting because this isn’t
the hunting season so you needn’t say it. And nobody ever goes camping
like that--no _sireeee_. I know who’s hiding there all right. It’s those
bandits that robbed the post office in Warnerville and we can get the
reward and I’m the one that wanted to sneak up and you said no, so that
shows how much you don’t know--it’s good I didn’t do like you said
because now you got the proof I didn’t get killed. And I bet this cleft
is where they came down, too. We’d better get away from here.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said.
“_Oh boy_, that’s some discovery!” he said. “It’s even almost better
than finding that will. And anyway I’m elected leader now because I
discovered them so I’m going to be the one to say what we’ll do.”
I said, “It was a very exciting election, I’ll say that. All right, kid,
come ahead back. I guess you win to-night. What are we going to do about
it?”
He said, all excited, “To-morrow morning early we’re going to go to
Bagley Center and tell the police--that’s the nearest village. Oh boy,
we’ll get the reward because I saw a bulletin in the Catskill Post
Office and I think it’s a thousand dollars, anyway there were a lot of
naughts----”
“Maybe the naughts were upside down,” I said. I had to laugh he was so
excited.
“There was a five and a lot of naughts,” he said, “and now I’m sorry I
didn’t count them. Then after we get the reward we’ll find the will and
Mr. Bagley will get his land and he’ll sell it to Temple Camp--and do
you know what let’s do?”
“Break it to me gently,” I said.
“We’ll have about a thousand dollars anyway and we’ll build a troop
cabin in that new land, away off in the woods, and we won’t let anybody
come there. We’ll be kind of different from everybody at camp, hey?
Maybe we’ll let visitors come to see us--because I bet a lot of people
will want to see us, hey, especially girls. Even we’ll be _double_
heroes.”
Then he came up for air and he didn’t say any more till we got to camp,
only trudged along beside me very important. He was starting in being a
hero already. When we got to camp he went marching up and started
trampling out the little fire. I guess Dub and Sandy thought he was
crazy.
“What’s the idea?” Sandy wanted to know.
“I’ll tell you as soon as the fire is out,” Pee-wee said, very
mysterious like.
They looked at me and I just said, “Ask the kid, he’s the big hero
to-night.”
“I found the place where those bandits are hiding,” Pee-wee said. “We
have to be careful and not have any light. To-morrow morning we’re going
up to Bagley Center to tell the police.”
I said, “Don’t look at me, you heard what he said.”
I guess none of us slept very much that night, I know _I_ didn’t. I kept
hearing sounds all the time and once I thought somebody was creeping up
to our tent. I was sorry we didn’t go up to the village right away as
soon as we found that camp but the other fellows thought every one would
be in bed. I just lay there listening for sounds. Once I fell asleep and
I had a dream that I found old Mr. Bagley’s last will and I was just
going to go and give it to him when one of those bandits pointed a
pistol at me and was just going to shoot me when Pee-wee threw a tomato
at him and I started to run. Jiminies, when you travel with Pee-wee
there’s something doing even when you’re asleep.
He got us up at about five o’clock in the morning, you’d have thought we
were going to catch a train. I said, “I’d rather be a bandit, then I
wouldn’t have to get up so early.”
He said, “We better have strong coffee on account of what we’re going to
do.”
I was so sleepy I hardly knew what I was saying. I staggered up against
Dub--he was as bad as I was.
“How much is it--ten thousand dollars?” he stammered.
“You mean the reward?” I said. I didn’t know what I was saying I was so
sleepy. “Search me, all I know is it’s got a five and a lot of naughts.
I don’t even know if the naughts are in front of the five or after it.
It may be one five thousandth of a cent for all I know, we should worry,
where’s the coffee-pot? We’re all mixed up with so much money and I
haven’t got enough for an ice cream cone when we get to Bagley Center.
That’s one thing I don’t like about robbers, they get you up so early in
the morning.”
“Suppose the wind shouldn’t be blowing toward Bagley Center?” Sandy
said. He was so dopey he couldn’t find the sugar and he handed me the
bottle of iodine.
“Then we can’t go,” I said.
“Are you going to start your crazy nonsense?” the kid wanted to know.
“Are you going to wake up and have some sense?”
After we had our coffee we got awake and we started being serious.
Because I had to admit that robbers are no laughing matter. Anyway
Pee-wee wasn’t any laughing matter.
“Do you think it’s a joke getting five thousand dollars maybe?” he said.
“That’s no joke,” I said. “Come on, I’m going to start in being serious.
Who’s going to be serious?”
“I am,” Dub said.
“Same here,” Sandy said.
“I’ll even cry if you want me to,” I said to Pee-wee.
If you look at my specially made map you’ll see there’s a dotted line
going from Beaver Chasm to Bagley Center, and it’s a dandy dotted line,
too. I made it good and slow. But I like to make railroads and brooks
better. All through there is woods. That dotted line is a trail. But,
believe me, you wouldn’t care anything about Bagley Center. But there’s
one good thing about it, I didn’t see any school there. The trail runs
right into the village--it’s the only thing in the village that runs. I
was wondering where Mr. Bagley lived.
“Maybe he’d be a good one to tell,” Pee-wee said, “because don’t you
know how he said he was away a lot and had adventures before he came
home to stay?”
I said, “No, I think we better go to the police because they’re the
right ones to go to.”
There wasn’t anybody up in the village, anyway we didn’t see anybody.
Only one man we saw and he was driving down the street in a wagon with
milk cans. He turned around and kept staring at us. Pretty soon we came
to a house where there was a girl sweeping off the porch. I guess maybe
she was a Girl Scout or something like that because she had a khaki
blouse on. She was busy, sweeping good and hard.
Pee-wee said, “Let’s ask her where the police station is, hey?”
“Sure,” I said, “I’ll ask her. Only maybe she’s sweeping in her sleep,
it’s so early. I wouldn’t want to wake her up.”
“If she’s asleep she’ll tell you so,” Dub said.
“I never thought of that,” I told him.
“Are you thinking about getting the robbers arrested or are you thinking
about being a fool?” Pee-wee wanted to know.
I went up to the girl and I said, “Hey, girl, are you awake because we’d
like to ask you a question?”
“Don’t you pay any attention to him because he’s a fool,” Pee-wee said.
“Will you please tell us where the police station is?”
She stopped sweeping and she looked kind of surprised and she said,
“It’s on Main Street and it’s right next to the Fire House.”
I said, “Can you get any ice cream cones anywhere around there?”
“Don’t you pay any attention to him,” Pee-wee piped up, “because it’s
serious business--so do you think the police are up yet?”
She said, “Goodness me, I don’t know, but if you’re hungry _I_ can give
you something to eat. I shouldn’t think you’d want ice cream cones so
early in the morning. I just bet you’re Boy Scouts and you’re lost. Do
you know where you are?”
“We’re here,” I said.
“Oh I just bet you’re lost,” she said. “Because you don’t belong in this
town. I bet you belong over at that big camp and I bet you’ve been out
all night and don’t know where you are. Last summer two boys that
belonged over at that camp, they were such smarties they got lost and
they thought this was Snowden Hollow and they had to go to the police
station and get something to eat and three girls showed them how to get
back to their camp. Oh I just almost _died_ laughing! The whole village
was laughing about it.”
“That would be only about five people anyway,” I said. “It wouldn’t be
enough to make a good laugh. We’ve had as many as thirty or forty people
laughing at us,” I said.
“Even fifty,” Pee-wee said, “and besides, you think you’re so smart,
we’re not lost at all and if you knew what we came to this town for
you’d even be scared. And besides sometimes Boy Scouts get lost on
purpose----”
“And they get hungry on purpose, too,” Dub said.
“They get lost so they can find their way,” the kid shouted at her.
“That shows how much prowess they’ve got.”
“We carry it around in our pockets,” I told her. “And resources, too, we
have plenty of them. How can you find your way if you don’t get lost?
Anybody that knows short division can do that.”
The girl just sat down on the steps and kept on laughing and laughing
and laughing. She said, “That’s just too funny! They get lost so they
can find their way! _Oh dear!_”
I said, “I know even funnier things than that.”
“That’s all girls can do--_giggle_,” the kid said. “When they get in a
boat they scream, and when they see a mouse they scream, and when they
see a spider they scream, and they’re scared of snakes and caterpillars,
especially toads, and all they can do is giggle. Anyway just to show you
how smart you’re not with your giggling and laughing at Scouts, now I’ll
tell you what we came to this village for and it wasn’t to get something
to eat--you’re so smart! It’s because we know where some robbers are
camped, and if they’re the ones we think they are we’ll get a reward, I
don’t know how much it is. But anyway did you ever hear of girls getting
a reward for scouting, I mean doing big things? Stopping trains and
finding lost people and saving lives and all that? So now you know why
we want to go to the police station--you’re so crazy all you can do is
to sit there and giggle! Sweep with brooms, that’s all girls can do.”
She stood up all of a sudden, very brave--you know how they throw their
heads back--girls. She stamped her foot at Pee-wee and looked straight
in his eyes as if she was trying to scare him and she put her face right
close up in front of him.
I said, “Don’t you dare to kiss him.”
“I wouldn’t kiss such a dunce,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what my pal
and I did yesterday afternoon. There’s a crazy man named Saul Bagley in
this village and he escaped from his home and wandered away three days
ago and there was a reward of a hundred dollars offered by his cousins
where he lives to anybody that would find him. And we two girls traced
him to Dale’s Corners and he was telling everybody there that Charlie
Chaplin gave him a million dollars and the Boy Scouts got it away from
him. And last night Miss Ella Bagley gave us a check for one hundred
dollars. So _there_, Mr. Smarty.”