PEE-WEE'S ADVENTURE
A walk of a few yards or so brought him to the railroad track. He was no
longer the clown and mascot of the _Good Turn_; he was the scout, alert,
resourceful, bent on hiding his tracks.
He did not know where he was going, more than that he was going to elude
pursuit and find a suitable spot in which to camp for the night. Matters
would take care of themselves in the daytime. He wanted to follow the
railroad tracks, for he knew that would keep him close to the river, but
he knew also that it had the disadvantage of being the very thing the
boys would suppose it most likely that he would do. For, feel as he
would toward them, he did not for a moment believe that they would let
him take himself off without searching for him. And he knew something of
Tom Slade's ability as a tracker.
"They won't get any merit badges trailing _me_, though," he said.
So he crossed the tracks and walked a couple of hundred feet or so up a
hill, grabbed the limb of a tree, swung up into its branches, let
himself down on the other side, and retraced his steps to the tracks and
began to walk the ties, northward. He was now thoroughly in the spirit
of the escapade and a feeling of independence seized him, a feeling that
every scout knows, that having undertaken a thing he must succeed in it.
A walk of about ten minutes brought him to a high, roofed platform
beside the tracks, where one or two hogsheads were standing and several
cases. But there was no sign of life or habitation. It was evidently the
freight station for some town not far distant, for a couple of
old-fashioned box-cars stood on a siding, and Pee-wee contemplated them
with the joy of sudden inspiration.
"Crinkums, that would be a dandy place to sleep," he thought, for it was
blowing up cold and he had but scant equipment.
He went up to the nearest car and felt of the sliding door. It was the
least bit open, owing to its damaged condition, and by moving it a very
few inches more he could have slipped inside. But he paused to examine
the pasters and chalk marks on the body. One read "Buffalo--4--LLM."
There were the names of various cities and numerous strange marks. It
was evident the car had been quite a globe-trotter in its time, but as
it stood there then it seemed to Pee-wee that so it must have stood for
a dozen years and was likely to stand for a dozen years more.
He slid the door a little farther open on its rusty hinges and climbed
inside. It was very dark and still and smelled like a stable, but
suddenly he was aware of a movement not far from him. He did not exactly
hear it, but he felt that something was moving. For a moment a cold
shudder went over him and he stood stark still, not daring to move.
Then, believing that his imagination had played a trick, he fumbled in
his duffel bag, found his flashlight and sent its vivid gleam about the
car. A young fellow in a convict's suit stood menacingly before the door
with one hand upon it, blinking and watching the boy with a lowering
aspect. His head was close-shaven and shone in the light's glare so that
he looked hardly human. He had apparently sprung to the door, perhaps
out of a sound sleep, and he was evidently greatly alarmed. Pee-wee was
also greatly alarmed, but he was no coward and he stood his ground
though his heart was pounding in his breast.
"You ain't no bo," said the man.
"I--I'm a scout," stammered Pee-wee, "and I was going to camp here for
the night. I didn't know there was anyone here."
The man continued to glare at him and Pee-wee thought he had never in
his life seen such a villainous face.
"I'll--I'll go away," he said, "I was only going to sleep here."
The convict, still guarding the door, leered brutally at him, his head
hanging low, his lips apart, more like a beast than a man.
"No, yer won't go 'way, nuther," he finally said; "yer ain't goin' ter
double-cross _me_, pal. Wot d'yer say yer wuz?"
"A scout," said Pee-wee. "I don't need to stay here, you were here
first. I can camp outdoors."
"No, yer don't," said the man. "You stay whar yer are. Yer ain't goin'
ter double-cross _me_."
"I don't know what you mean by that," said Pee-wee.
The convict did not offer him any explanation, only stood guarding the
door with a threatening aspect, which very much disconcerted Pee-wee. He
was a scout and he was brave, and not panicky in peril or emergency, but
the striped clothing and cropped head and stupid leer of the man before
him made him seem something less than human. His terror was more that of
an animal than of a man and his apparent inability to express himself
save by the repetition of that one sentence frightened the boy.
Apparently the creature was all instinct and no brains.
"Yer gotta stay here," he repeated. "Yer ain't goin' ter double-cross
_me_, pal."
Then it began to dawn on Pee-wee what he meant.
"I guess I know about you," he said, "because I heard about
your--getting away. But, anyway, if you let me go away I won't tell
anyone I saw you. I don't want to camp here now. I'll promise not to go
and tell people, if that's what you're afraid of."
"Wot's in that bag?" asked the man.
"My camping things."
"Got any grub?"
"I've got two biscuits and some chocolate."
"Gimme it," said the man, coming closer.
He snatched the food as fast as it was taken out of the bag, and Pee-wee
surmised that he had not eaten since his escape from prison for he
devoured it ravenously like a famished beast.
"Got any more?" he asked, glaring into the boy's face menacingly.
"No, I'm sorry I haven't. I escaped, too, as you might say, from my
friends--from the fellers I was with. And I only brought a little with
me."
After a few minutes (doubtless from the stimulating effects of the
food), the convict's fear seemed to subside somewhat and he spoke a
little more freely. But Pee-wee found it very unpleasant being shut in
with him there in the darkness, for, of course, the flashlight could not
be kept burning all the time.
"I wouldn't do yer no hurt," he assured Pee-wee. "I t'ought mebbe yer
wuz a _de_-coy. Yer ain't, are ye?" he asked suspiciously.
"No, I'm not," said Pee-wee, "I'm just what I told you----"
"I ain't goin' ter leave ye go free, so ye might's well shut up. I seen
pals double-cross _me_--them ez I trusted, too. Yer square, I
guess--only innercent."
"I'd keep my word even with--I'd keep my word with you," said Pee-wee,
"just the same as with anyone. Besides, I don't see what's the use of
keeping me here. You'll have to let me go some time, you can't keep me
here forever, and you can't stay here forever, yourself."
"If ye stan' right 'n' show ye're game," said the convict, "thar won't
no hurt come to ye. This here car's way-billed fer Buff'lo, 'n' I'm
waitin' ter be took up now. It's a grain car. Yer ain't goin' ter peach
wot I tell ye, now? I wuz put wise to it afore I come out by a railroad
bloke. I had it straight these here cars would be picked up fer Buff'lo
the nex' day after I done my trick. But they ain't took 'em up yet, an'
I'm close ter starvin' here."
Pee-wee could not help but feel a certain sympathy with this man, wretch
though he was, who on the information of some accomplice outside the
prison, had made his escape expecting to be carried safely away the next
day and had been crouching, half-starved, in this freight car ever
since, waiting.
"What will you do if they don't take up the car for a week?" he asked.
"They might look inside of it, too; or they might change their minds
about taking it."
He was anxious for himself for he contemplated with terror his
threatened imprisonment, but he could not help being concerned also for
this miserable creature and he wondered what would happen if they both
remained in the car for several days more, with nothing to eat. Then,
surely, the man would be compelled to put a little faith in him and let
him go out in search of food. He wondered what he should do in that
case--what he ought to do; but that, he realized, was borrowing trouble.
Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster, had once said that it is _always bad to
play false_. Well, then, would it be bad to play false with an escaped
felon--to double-cross him? Pee-wee did not know.
His companion interrupted his train of thought "They don' look inside o'
way-billed empties--not much," he said, "an' they don't let 'em stan' so
long, nuther. I got bad luck, I did, from doin' my trick on a Friday.
They'll be 'long pretty quick, though. They reckisitioned all th' empty
grain cars fer Buff'lo. I'm lookin' ter hear th' whistle any minute, I
am, an' I got a pal waitin' fer me in the yards up ter Buff'lo, wid the
duds. When I get there 'n' get me clo's changed, mebbe I'll leave ye
come back if me pal 'n' me thinks ye kin be trusted."
"I can be trusted now just as much as I could be trusted then," said
Pee-wee, greatly disturbed at the thought of this enforced journey;
"and how could I get back? I guess maybe you don't know anything about
scouts--maybe they weren't started when you were---- Anyway, a scout can
be trusted. Anybody'll tell you that. If he gives his word he'll keep
it. I don't know anything about what you did and if you ask me if I want
to see you get captured I couldn't tell you, because I don't know how I
feel. But if you'll let me go now I'll promise not to say anything to
anyone. I don't want to go to Buffalo. I want to go to my camp. As long
as I know about you, you got to trust me some time and you might as well
trust me now."
If the fugitive could have seen Pee-wee's earnest face and honest eyes
as he made this pitiful appeal, he might have softened a little, even if
he had not appreciated the good sense of the boy's remarks.
"I'd ruther get me other duds on fust, 'n' I'd like fer ter hev ye meet
me pal," he said, with the first touch of humor he had shown. "Now, if
yer go ter cuttin' up a rumpus I'll jest hev ter brain ye, see?"
Pee-wee leaned back against the side of the car in the darkness as
despair seized him. He had always coveted adventure but this was too
much and he felt himself to be utterly helpless in this dreadful
predicament. Even as he stood there in a state of pitiable
consternation, a shrill whistle sounded in the distance, which was
echoed back from the unseen hills.
"Dat's a freight," said the convict, quickly.
Pee-wee listened and his last flickering hope was extinguished as he
recognized the discordant rattle and bang of the slow-moving train,
emphasized by the stillness of the night. Nearer and nearer it came and
louder grew the clank and clamor of the miscellaneous procession of box
cars. It was a freight, all right.
"If--if you'll let me get out," Pee-wee began, on the very verge of a
panic, "if you'll let me get out----"
The convict fumblingly took him by the throat. He could feel the big,
coarse, warm fingers pressing into the sides of his neck and it gagged
him.
"If yer open yer head when we're bein' took up, I'll brain yer, hear
that?" he said. "Gimme that light, gimme yer knife."
He flashed on the light, tore the scout knife from Pee-wee's belt, and
flung the frightened boy against the side of the car. Keeping the light
pointed at him, he opened the knife. The spirit of desperate resolve
seemed to have reawakened within him at the sound of that long-hoped-for
train and Pee-wee was no more to him than an insect to have his life
trampled out if he could not be used or if his use were unavailing.
Here, unmasked, was the man who had braved the tempestuous river on that
dreadful night. Truly, as the sheriff had said, "desperate characters
will take desperate chances."
"If yer open yer head or call out or make a noise wid yer feet or poun'
de side o' de car or start a-bawlin' I'll brain ye, ye hear? Nobody gets
_me_ alive. An' if anybody comes in here 'cause o' you makin' a noise
and cryin' fer help, yer'll be the fust to git croaked--see?"
He pointed the light straight at Pee-wee, holding the open jack-knife in
his other hand, and glared at him with a look which struck terror to the
boy's heart. Pee-wee was too frightened and exhausted to answer. He only
shook his head in acknowledgment, breathing heavily.
In a few minutes the train had come abreast of them and stopped. They
could hear the weary puffing of the engine, and voices calling and
occasionally they caught the gleam of a lantern through the crack in
the car. Pee-wee remained very still. The convict took his stand in the
middle of the car between the two sliding doors, lowering and alert,
holding the flashlight and the clasp knife.
Soon the train moved again, then stopped. There were calls from one end
of it to the other. Then it started again and continued to move until
Pee-wee thought it was going away, and his hope revived at the thought
that escape might yet be possible. Then the sound came nearer again and
presently the car received a jolt, accompanied by a bang. The convict
was thrown a little, but he resumed his stand, waiting, desperate,
menacing. Those few minutes must have been dreadful ones to him as he
watched the two doors, knife in hand.
Then came more shunting and banging and calling and answering, a short,
shrill whistle and more moving and then at last the slow, continuous
progress of the car, which was evidently now at last a part of that
endless miscellaneous procession, rattling along through the night with
its innumerable companions.
"It's lucky for them," said the convict, through his teeth, as he
relaxed.
Pee-wee hardly knew what he meant, he had scarcely any interest, and it
was difficult to hear on account of the noise. He was too shaken up to
think clearly, but he wondered, as the rattling train moved slowly
along, how long he could go without food, how he would get back from
Buffalo, and whether this dreadful companion of his would take his
stand, like an animal at bay, whenever the train stopped.
After a little time, when he was able to get a better grip on himself
and realize fully his terrible plight, he began to think how, after all,
the scout, with all his resource and fine courage, his tracking and his
trailing and his good turns, is pretty helpless in a real dilemma. Here
was an adventure, and rather too much of a one, and neither he nor any
other scout could extricate him from his predicament. In books they
could have done it with much brave talk, but in real life they could do
nothing. He was tired and frightened and helpless; the shock of the
pressure of those brutal fingers about his neck still distressed him,
and his head ached from it all.
What wonder if in face of this tragical reality, the scouts with all
their much advertised resource and prowess should lose prestige a little
in his thoughts? Yet it might have been worth while for him to pause and
reflect that though the scout arm is neither brutal nor menacing, it
still has an exceedingly long reach and that it can pin you just as
surely as the cruel fingers which had fixed themselves on his own
throat.
But he was too terrified and exhausted to think very clearly about
anything.