THE SCOUT
Distracted, frenzied, Pee-wee knelt in the darkness and felt about at
the base of the long lever. It seemed to enter a metal housing in the
floor. More than this, his hurried examination revealed nothing.
He tried again to pull the handle over but it would not budge. He had a
frightful feeling that everything he did made matters worse. He was
losing his morale.
Suddenly he thought of the other lever close by the one he had moved.
What was that for? The lever which had manipulated the gates was of
another pattern and away from these two. What was this other one for? If
he pushed it over would it undo what he had done? Were the two movements
of the switch controlled by the two levers? Maybe, for there was no
other switch. Yet there might be another somewhere.
Should he take a chance and push over this other lever?
Oh, if Townsend would only come. If _Townsend would only come_! He put
his small hand on the other lever and took it off again. He knelt again
to see if he could feel any cogwheels or anything through the grooves in
which the levers moved. Oh, if he only had a light and could see. If he
could _only see_!
He stood up, the perspiration standing in beads on his face, his throat
throbbing from the quick, agitated breaths, almost insane with the
feeling of utter powerlessness and of maddening suspense. It seemed as
if he had unhinged the universe. At every innocent sound of the night he
started. Oh, if Townsend would only—
Suddenly he stood stark still, struck with unspeakable fright, his hands
and face icy cold, as he heard again the distant whistle of a train.
Where was it? Far or near? The country was so vast and sound travels so
in the night and echoes and re-echoes among hills and valleys! Where was
it. Was it coming?
Trembling, he groped his way to the window closest to the tracks...
And then, _just then_, the panic-stricken boy disappeared, and in his
place there was Walter Harris, scout of the first class, First
Bridgeboro, New Jersey, Troop, B. S. A., looking out of the window at
something which lay between the shiny rails almost directly below him.
It was what he had seen before, a little red spot, only now it was
smaller.
He was too agitated to shout his customary announcement that he had an
inspiration, but that is what he had. He realized now, what he had not
taken the trouble to think about before, that this tiny, luminous patch
was a little pile of live coals dropped by the locomotive that had
passed just as the flivver had reached the tracks.
In the daylight he had not noticed it at all. In the dusk, when he had
seen it before, it had been larger but less luminous. Now, in the
surrounding blackness, it looked like a little red ball. Perhaps, of
that little pile, only one coal was still alive. And that would soon die
out. As Pee-wee looked down one edge of the red spot seemed to
straighten out as the fire left it. He thought that the tiny area of red
was narrowing. Even as he looked it had ceased to be round.
But whatever rapid process was going on down there, it was not as rapid
as the lightning process of Pee-wee’s mind now that it was aroused to
action. Here was Pee-wee the scout with a vengeance. He was always
thorough and self-sufficient. When he slept no one could awaken him.
When he ate no one could stop him. When he talked the world was silent.
And when he had an inspiration the solar system had to get from under.
He remembered that the long lever which manipulated the gates was split.
He recalled that very distinctly, because he had tried ineffectually to
raise the gates with it. It did not work. But he remembered that it was
bound around for the whole of its length with cord which had held the
split handle together. He cast another hurried glance out of the window
at that little diminishing spot of red. It seemed smaller than before,
hardly more than a speck now. He looked along the track for just a
second listening. Then he looked down again for a reassuring glimpse of
the tiny speck of fire.
It was gone.