ALL BECAUSE OF A SNEEZE
Loudly, earnestly Porky Sneezed. It was so sudden, so unexpected
that he could not control or disguise it. It came out, seemingly
filling the little plant house. To Porky it sounded like a large
gun going off. It was followed by an instant of deepest silence
while Porky crouched in his corner and wondered what next. Like
an inspiration the thought came to him as the two men, quick as
cats, leaped for the door and shoved it in. Ledermann had a
flashlight in his hand, and he swept the little room, making an
exclamation as he found what he sought and feared. In the corner
he saw a little boy curled up asleep.
Adolph seized the boy's foot and jerked it roughly. With a start
he awoke, muttering, "What's the matter?"
"Come out here!" cried Ledermann, as Adolph hauled the boy out of
the door.
"What's the matter?" cried Porky. "I ain't doin' any harm! I
was tired, and went in there, and I must have gone to sleep.
How'd you know I was there? Are you police?"
"Yes, that's it!" said Ledermann. "You've guessed it. We are
policemen."
"Where's your uniforms?" he asked then. "You ain't policemen.
What you doin' here yourself? You can't arrest me for just goin'
to sleep in this dinky little dog house. Gee, I might have slept
all night! Guess I'll go along. Pop and Mom'll fix me for bein'
so late." He started to rise, but Ledermann pushed him back.
"Not so fast, not so fast, young follow!" he said slowly. "I
would like to find out, if possible, just how much asleep you
were. You see we don't think you would listen to anything that
was not intended for your ears, but we want you to tell us if you
did hear any little thing. By mistake, of course."
"Wasting time!" grunted Adolph. "Let me tickle him with my
little toy here. Safety first, as these people always say."
"Be quiet!" ordered Ledermann. "And you too, young fellow! If
you try to scream, we will kill you."
"Aw, quit your kiddn'!" said Porky cheekily. "What would I want
to yell for? I don't want to get arrested any more than I am. I
want to go home! tell you, how could I hear anything when I was
asleep? I want to go home! What's it to me what you talk
about?" He sniffed, and drew his cuff across his eyes.
"Let me have him," said Adolph. "Let me go outside the gates
with him."
"No," said Porky, using his cuff again. "I ain't goin' with
nobody. I know how to get home. I don't have to have somebody
take me." He tried to wiggle away, but felt Adolph's clutch
close like an iron vise.
"There, there," said Ledermann quietly, as he nudged Adolph under
cover of the darkness. "All we want to know is how much you
heard. It is nothing to me what you do after that. You see my
friend here does not mean what he says, but--well, I may as well
tell you how it is." He turned the flashlight on the boy's face
and held it there, watching him like a hawk while he talked. "My
friend has invented something that will prove to be a very
wonderful thing for everybody in the world, and he is very
anxious that it shall be kept a secret until he is ready to put
it on the market. Now you are a smart boy, and I will give you
one guess to see if you can tell me what we were talking about.
Tell me what you think he has invented."
Porky thought a moment with a deep frown on his face.
"It's a patent medicine he has invented," he ventured finally.
"That's a good guess," said Ledermann. "Such a good guess that I
think you must have heard some of our talk."
"I didn't, honest," said Porky. "Couldn't you see I was asleep?
What do you suppose I care about your old patent medicine? So
long as you ain't policemen, let me go. I want to go home!"
"You shall go," said Ledermann, scowling in the direction of
Adolph, "but I am afraid you might follow us and find out about
the medicine. If you stay right here for a while, why, we will
go away, and you will never know to whom you have been talking in
this pitch dark. So we will just get you to do that much for us.
And if you tell any one how you came to be here, or what we have
said to you, we will come back and kill you and kill all your
people!"
He hissed the awful threat in the boy's ear, and shutting off
the flashlight, he took a cord from his pocket, and wound it
tightly around the boy's wrists and ankles, tying it in a
peculiar knot. Then with a handkerchief he gagged him.
"Now," he said to Porky, "you can get that cord off and the gag
out, but you are going to sleep for a little while." He took a
little pill from his pocket and forced it far back in Porky's
mouth. "We will sit outside and watch you a while," said the
spy. He laid the boy down on the floor of the house, propped the
door in place, and all was silent. In the house, Porky, lying
flat on his back, was trying frantically to work the pill out
between his lips before it dissolved. He rolled it forward in
his cheek, and turned on his face and blew hard.
The pill rolled out on the floor. Porky went limp. Sweat poured
down his face as he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
There was absolute silence outside but Porky fancied he could
hear the breathing of the watchers. It seemed hours and hours
before he heard the door move, and knew the flashlight was
directed on him. Then he heard a grunt of satisfaction and soft
footsteps padding over the close grass told him that at last the
two villains were gone.
Porky did not dare to stir, however, and lay thinking out his
next move. He felt that for a little while he was safe. His one
concern was for his brother, who had been watching over the
greenhouses on the other side of the race-track. It occurred to
him that Beany would be waiting for him there. He decided that
for a while at least he would not report the affair to Colonel
Bright. He wanted to find his brother. But he did not dare
leave the toy house, so he lay listening to every sound and
working in the dark with the most extraordinary knot that
Ledermann had tied in the cord cutting into his ankles.
Beany, who had walked rapidly over to the place allocated for
him, had waited in vain for something to turn up, and long after
the time set for the meeting had commenced watching for his
brother. Something, he felt sure, had happened in some other
part of the grounds. He was strangely uneasy. A great desire to
find Porky came over him. He walked down the road, leading from
the great upper camp, and stood looking in every direction.
watching for his brother.
As he looked, a familiar car swept past him an and stopped. It
was the Colonel's car, and Colonel Bright himself leaned out and
beckoned him. Beany ran to the machine and saluted.
"Hop in, hop in!" said the Colonel. "I don't know which one you
are but I want to talk to you. Go on, Sergeant," and the car
leaped forward.
"You or your brother said something about a hunch. Never mind
which one, I'll bet you both think alike. Now I want to know all
about it. What's that hunch all about?"
Beany was silent.
"Come on, I'm listening," he said, urging the boy to words.
Beany looked up into the strong, rugged face and studied the
keen, kind, twinkling eyes that made the Colonel the best loved
man in the American army, then leaned close to the Colonel, and
told him of the two men at the ice-cream stand, and then, going
back, he told of their recognition of the captain as the man who
had driven the car at the Troop D Farm. The Colonel listened,
even forgetting to smoke, and a frown deepened on his face.
"Where is your brother now?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Beany. "At the green house waitin' for me,
I suppose."
"Would he go home, or back to the Police Camp?"
"No, sir, we always wait for each other," explained Beany.
"Well, we are in town now," said the Colonel, "and soon as I do
an errand downtown you may take me to your house, and then the
Sergeant will run you back to the Camp. If you find your
brother, telephone me. I don't need to tell you to keep silent.
Don't forget what a big thing you're doing, my boy, and also what
a great reward if you find the formula. Think of it, a college
education! And I will see to it that you will each have one."
"Yes, sir," said Beany thickly. "I keep a-thinkin' about the
college education."
"That's right," said the Colonel heartily. "That's right! Just
think what a fine thing to earn. The chance to have four years,
in fact, to have six years good hard study in a good school and
college. Think of the fellows that would jump at a chance like
that!"
"Yes, sir," said Beany, and added earnestly, "I wish they had it
to jump at. Here is your corner." He skipped out of the car,
and when the colonel went in to the big office building, Beany
stood on the curb and looked around him. Beany was tired and
dirty and pale through the grime. He had had no supper. He was
low, very low in his mind. All that talk about college again.
Hang it! He had clean forgotten that hanging over him, and had
been enjoying all this spy hunting for its own sake.
The more he thought of that college education, the more he
glared. He groaned, and turned just in time to face a couple of
men who were hurrying across the sidewalk. They glanced a him,
stopped short, and the smaller man went dead white.
"Look, Ledermann!" he cried in a choking voice. "It's the same!
What did you give him?" He screamed suddenly, his face worked,
and grew purple. Then down he went frothing in such a terrible
convulsion that Beany bolted into the Colonel's car, frightened
out of his wits. A crowd gathered, and at once ambulance was
summoned, and policemen were taking the names of people who had
happened to be near; but no one thought of taking anything at
all from the Boy Scout who sat so still beside the Colonel's
driver.
When the ambulance had clattered away with its gong ringing
noisily, the Sergeant turned to Beany.
"Well, you did for him all right!" he said.
"What did I do?" demanded Beany.
"That's all right," said the Sergeant. "I have my eyes all
right, all right. You tell the Colonel or I will. Those bums
give you a look, and threw a fit. Both of 'em. I saw their eyes
stick out a yard. They acted like you was a ghost. You do look
pretty pale, at that! Well, I bet you've done for one of them.
I never saw a harder fit in my life. You certainly gave him some
scare."
"I never saw him before," Beany said over and over. When the
Colonel came out, the Sergeant gave him a glare, and he repeated
the incident as they drove toward the Colonel's house. The
Colonel said he would telephone to the hospital, as the man
would no doubt come out all right.
Beany said good-night to the Colonel and slipped back in the seat
beside the Sergeant.
"Funny about that fellow," said the soldier. "Did you hear what
he said? He said, 'What did you give him?' Looks queer to me.
Looks like he thought you were the ghost of somebody they had
just killed. Must be you looked like somebody--" the man
stopped, and stared at Beany for a startled second.
"Where's your twin?" he asked suddenly.
Beany went cold. A thousand frightful thoughts and possibilities
surged up in his mind. Where was Porky?
He turned and struck the Sergeant a sharp blow on the arm.
"Drive fast!" he demanded, and settling low in his seat, watched
the road drive at their car and disappear under it, as the
Sergeant, eager as, claimed the privilege of the Colonel's car
and leaped past everything on the boulevard.
"Where will you go?" cried the Sergeant in his ear.
"Here by the gate first," said Beany, leaping out of the car.
The Sergeant stopped his engine. "I'll go with you," he said
kindly.
It seemed a hopeless task. They did not know where to look, but
first tried all the seats around the bandstand and the settees on
the great porches behind the pillars of the Administration and
Fine Arts Building.
Then they drove the car over to the greenhouse, but all was quiet
and deserted there. At the suggestion of the Sergeant, they went
to the Hospital but no boy had been brought in. Once more they
approached the gate, and again they left the car,
And looked silently about in the darkness.
Beany was trembling with fear; fear for the brother whom he
loved.
He placed his fingers to his lips and gave a shrill, clear
whistle. Three times he repeated the call that sounded like some
night bird's song.
Then, as they listened, it was repeated. It was a muffled sound,
yet close. Once more Beany gave the signal, this time with a
leaping heart, and the answer came clear and keen, as though a
lid had been taken off.
Beany ran in the direction of the sound. As he passed the
flower-house, Porky hailed him.
"Hey!" he said. "Got a knife?"
Guided by Porky's voice, Beany and the Sergeant raced across the
grass.
"Here I am!" said Porky, cocky as you please. "Say, I wish you
could see this knot! I have worked about all night over it, and
it gets tighter and tighter."
The Sergeant whipped out a knife and cut the cord.
"Who tied you up?" he asked.
"A couple of fellows," said Porky, stamping the feeling into his
feet and ankles. "Couldn't see who they were."
"You can see one of them any time now, I'll bet," said the
Sergeant. "Your brother here did for him in the neatest way you
ever saw." He repeated the meeting on Salina Street, while Porky
walked up and down the drive between the Sergeant and his
brother.
"Yes, sir, he keeled right over and gosh, how he did flop around!
It was a fit all right. I bet he died, too, because he went limp
all at once. He acted like he'd seen a ghost. He yelled, 'What
did you give him?' to the other fellow. What did he call him?"
he asked Beany. "I heard him call some name."
Porky's elbow went sharply into Beany's ribs.
"Didn't catch it," said he, obeying the warning for silence.