A NEW MEMBER
“Come ahead, Toby; eventually, why not now?” asked Westy.
“_Eventually_,” mocked Dorry Benton. “Sounds like Arabella.”
“Don’t worry about him, he’s home in bed,” said Connie.
But Pee-wee, for one, did worry about him. He could not get him out of
his thoughts. He recalled how ready Emerson had been to treat him, and
how pleasant he had been in his own prim way. Yet now, among his own
comrades, rough and ready and bantering, Pee-wee really did feel more at
home. And he saw Emerson as a boy quite impossible in such company.
Right and left, they were ridiculing his schemes and ideas about poor
Emerson. And then there was Robin Hood....
As he finished, he slipped down from the stool and went over and patted
Robin Hood. The splendid animal paid not the slightest attention to him.
Hamburger Mike glanced over the top of his paper. “He wouldn’ make frens
widcher,” he informed Pee-wee. “Dem perlece dogs got no use for nobody
’cepten’ dere owners.”
“You do something big and he’ll pay attention to you,” said Toby. “In
the war, Bob would go to anybody that had the distinguished service
cross, wouldn’t you, Bobby—hey, Bobby?”
Robin Hood glanced slowly around at his young master, then away again.
He did not look as if he were likely to pay much attention to any one
else.
Pee-wee could not own this dog, but he might have him in his patrol. And
probably the scouts were right about Emerson.... He forgot his radio, he
forgot Emerson, he forgot everything in the new scout plan which
Connie’s inspiration had suggested.
“I’d like to put one over on the police,” he heard Dorry say.
“Boy Scouts Successful in Search with Police Dog,” he heard Westy say,
suggesting a possible heading in the Bridgeboro _Daily Bungle_.
“If—if you really want to join,” said Pee-wee, his conscience still
causing him to speak in a halting way, “gee whiz, I’ll only be too glad,
and I guess Artie will too; won’t you, Artie?”
“You bet,” said Artie Van Arlen, titular head of the Ravens. Like many
titular heads, he was subject to a boss. And it was the boss who was
speaking.
“If I go with you to-night and let Bob help, it means I’m in on it?”
said Toby conditionally.
“You said it,” encouraged Roy. “Same as Pee-wee; member in good
standing, only he doesn’t stand very high.”
“Will you? Say the word,” Connie encouraged.
“And you can go to camp and everything,” Pee-wee shouted, his conscience
reconciled or drugged at last. “To-night—right now—we’ll—I tell you what
we’ll do—we’ll take Bob—we’ll—listen—we’ll take Bobbin Hood—I mean Robin
Hood—and we’ll go to Garrisons, hey, and start from there. We’ll give
him the scent, and, oh, boy, we’ll rescue her, I bet, before morning and
it’ll be in the New York papers and everything—and I tell you what we’ll
do—we’ll change the name of our patrol from the Ravens to the Police
Dogs—hey? Won’t we, Artie? So will you join? Will you come ahead?”
“I don’t mind,” said Toby.
“_Good night_, we found a scout, now we ought to find Margie Garrison,”
said Connie. “Some big night, hey?”
“_Oh, boy, you said it!_” vociferated Pee-wee.