THE SHERIFF ARRIVES
We were singing that crazy stuff that we had made up, when all of a
sudden, along came an automobile with four men in it, and stopped right
behind us. We heard one of them say, "Why, that's the car, now."
They all jumped down and came around the big Pierce-Arrow and stood
staring up at us. They stared at the Brewster's Centre car, too; I guess
they didn't know what to make of it.
One of the men said, "What's all this? What are you boys doing with that
machine?"
As long as none of the other fellows said anything, I spoke up and said,
"We're boy scouts and we're sitting here."
"Boy scouts!" he said, all flabbergasted.
"Right the first time," I told him; "we rescued this car from two
fellows that were trying to get away with it. You see that railroad car?
That belongs to us."
"We're going to have a deed to it," Pee-wee shouted.
"Sure," I said; "a dark and bloody deed. We just happened to be there,
because we rolled down the grade from Ridgeboro. Believe me, I've been
through eight different grades in school, but this one was the worst I
ever saw. We came near taking a header into the lake, but we got the
brakes on just in time. You get a fine view of the car from here, don't
you?"
"I'm the sheriff of this county," the man said. "You say you stopped
this machine?"
"We can stop any machine, even a Rolls-Royce," I told him.
"Yes?" he said.
"You'd better ask this fellow how it was," I said, pointing to Westy.
"We stopped them, that's all," Westy said. That was just like him.
"Well then, _I'll_ tell you," I said. "When they said they couldn't get
by, they wanted to run our car down into the lake. What did they care?"
"But we _foiled_ them," Pee-wee shouted.
"Foiled them, hey?" the sheriff said. Gee, he couldn't help smiling.
Then I just grabbed Westy's head and pulled it where the men could see.
"When they were on the railroad car," I said, "this fellow took the
spark plugs out of the machine and hid them in the lake."
One of the men blurted out, "What!"
"That's nothing," Pee-wee started; "once----"
"He got a couple of snapshots of them, too," I said; "maybe they'll be
of some use to you."
"Hey, Mister, can this machine do eighty miles an hour?" Wig piped up.
"Seventy," the man said.
"_Y--a--a--h!_ What did I tell you?" Connie said, giving him a rap on
the head.
"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.