WE TAKE HARRY INTO OUR CONFIDENCE
One thing, I wouldn't let anybody talk against Dorry Benton. Even I
wouldn't have told you about that, only he said it was all right. I knew
all the time that he would never cheat those fellows out of their reward.
He didn't say anything more that night, but in the morning he came after me
when I went to get sticks for the fire, and then I knew everything was all
right.
He said, "You and I are the only ones that know who Jib Jab is. What are
we going to do about it? And another thing, would it be all right for
scouts to take a reward like that? Something for a service?"
"Sure it would be all right," I told him; "something for a service means
tips and things like that. Scouts can take presents and win rewards, I
hope. Didn't Pee-wee win an extra helping of pie up at camp for keeping
still all through dinner? Mr. Ellsworth said it was all right."
Gee, Dorry couldn't answer that argument.
"You should worry about its being an right," I said; "but, oh boy, if we
make a mistake we'll spoil everything. We have to watch our step. We've
just got to make Brent Gaylong discover that fellow without any help. If we
don't, _good night!_ he'll never claim the reward. I know that fellow."
"Maybe we'd better tell Harry; Donnelle," Dorry said.
"That's just what I was thinking," I told him; "because maybe he can think
of a way."
So as soon as we could, we got Harry off in the woods alone. There wasn't
much time, because we were all going to hit the trail for Newburgh after
breakfast.
I said, "Harry, that freak fellow in the circus is the same fellow who's
picture was in the paper; he's Horace E. Chandler, I'm positive."
He said, "I told you if you ate too many of those flapjacks last night,
you'd be dreaming dreams."
"All right," I told him, "you remember about Marshal Foch; how you said he
was a calf?"
"Let's have a squint at the picture," Harry said; "these remarkable
discoveries of yours are getting to be a bad habit. A leopard is bad
enough, but a _what-is-it!_"
So we showed him the picture and he screwed up his face and looked at it
awful funny. Then he read the article all through.
"Well, so you think that's Wandering Horace, do you?" he asked.
I said, "Yes, because his hair is the same, and that funny kind of a look
in his eye and everything. You've got to admit Jib Jab is human. He's a
nice fellow, too. I bet he'd want to see these fellows get the reward."
Harry said, "Yes, I don't exactly hold it against him that he's human; he
couldn't help it I suppose. I'm kind of human myself. But just suppose, for
the fun of it, that you're right--"
"There's no fun about it," I told him; "Dorry and I both saw him."
"All right," he said; "and you want to sacrifice him to the Church Mice.
You want to put them on his trail. How do _we_ know he wants to be
discovered?"
"It's a good turn," Dorry said.
Harry said, "Well, I'm not a scout and I don't deal much in good turns--"
I said, "I bet you did hundreds of them." And I bet he did, too.
He just said, "But who is the good turn going to hit? What is it you want
to do?"
Dorry said, "We want these fellows to find out who Jib Jab is; we want to
start things going so they can find out of their own accord, before its too
late."
"Yes, and how about poor Jib Jab?" Harry said. "If you harm one person to
help another, do you call that a good turn? How do we know why he's
traveling with that circus and living in an animal's skin? Seems to me
we've got to consider _him_ when we act."
Gee, by that I saw that there's a lot more to good turns than some fellows
think.
"But anyway," I said, "Harry, that fellow is reckless just like you. Do you
mean to tell me his mother and father haven't got a right to know where he
is? Just because _you_ went all over the world doesn't say--"
"Well, there isn't any mention of his mother and father here," he said;
"only Mr. Horace E. Wade! up there in Greendale, or whatever they call it."
For a couple of minutes, Dorry and I didn't say
anything, and Harry just sat there on a log whittling a stick.
Then he said, "Let's see that picture again." Dorry handed it to him and he
looked at it in that funny, squinty way, same as before, then handed it
back.
"Then can't we do anything about it?" I asked him.
"How about getting the reward ourselves?" he asked me.
"What do we want it for?" I said. "We're having plenty of fun. We don't
need anything." He just went on whittling and looked up kind of funny like,
at Dorry.
"How about you?" he asked. "You saw the picture first, and recognized him.
Come in handy, that hundred, I dare say?"
Dorry just said, "Nix."
"Bully for you," Harry said, and he gave him a push in the chest. Didn't I
tell you I knew how he'd feel about it?
"Well, then," he said, "since you are the only ones who would have any
claims, we'll have to see what kind of a scout the Honorable Mr. Jib Jab
is. I kind of like that fellow's face--"
"Don't you go and ask him to go off to South
Africa with you," I said. Because I knew Harry Donnelle, all right.
"We'll just have to see if he's game for a little conspiracy. I kind of
think from that twinkle in his eye, that he will be. We'll just have to
lay the whole thing before him. We'll tell him about Gaylong and the poor
Church Mice and if he's human-"
"Sure he's human!" I said. "Doesn't he smoke cigarettes and jolly the
freaks, and wink at us and all that? _Sure_ he's human-he's _especially
human!_"