Part 3 (1/2)

Soon the car came to a stop, and Pee-wee's thumping heart almost came to a stop at the same time. Suppose they should lift the robe? What would they do? And quite as much to the point, what should _he_ do? A sudden impulse to throw off his kindly camouflage and run for all he was worth, seized him. But he thought of those seventy pistols and two blackjacks and refrained. Should he face them boldly, like the hero in a story book and say, ”Ha, ha, you are foiled. The eyes of the scout have followed you in your flight and you are caught!”

No he would not do that. A scout is supposed to be cautious. He would remain under the buffalo robe.

Presently he heard the unmistakable sound and felt the unmistakable feeling of the car being run into some sort of a shelter. The voices of the thieves sounded different, more hollow, as voices heard in small quarters indoors. A little suggestion of an echo to them.

Pee-wee Harris, scout, did not know where he was or what was going on, but he _felt_ that four walls surrounded him. The plot was growing thicker. And it was suffocating under that heavy robe, now that there was no free air blowing about it.

”Where's the stuff?” one of the men asked.

”On the back seat,” said the other.

Pee-wee trembled.

”Oh, no, I guess it's on the floor,” the man added, ”I think I put the silver cup under the back seat--”

Pee-wee shuddered. So they had been stealing silver cups.

”Either there or--oh, here it is.”

Pee-wee breathed again.

Then he heard no more voices. But he heard other sounds. He heard the creaking of a heavy rolling door. He heard a sound as if it were being bolted or fastened on the inside. Then he heard the slamming of another door and a m.u.f.fled, metallic sound as of someone locking it on the outside. Then he heard footsteps, fainter, fainter.... Then he heard a sound which seemed to him familiar. He could not liken it to anything in particular, but it sounded familiar, a kind of clanking, metallic sound.

Then he heard a voice say, ”Let me handle her, give her a shove, hold her down, that's right.”

Pee-wee's blood ran cold. They were killing someone out there; some poor captive maiden, perhaps....

Then he heard no more.

CHAPTER VIII

A DISCOVERY

The ominous sound of doors rolling and of clanking staples and padlocks told Pee-wee all too conclusively that he was a prisoner, and he was seized with panic terror at the thought of being locked in a dungeon where he could hardly see his hand before his face.

As to where he was, he had no guess more than that he was miles and miles from home. But along with his fright came a feeling of relief that he was no longer in company of those two scoundrels who were unwittingly responsible for his predicament. They would probably not return before morning and he would have at least a little breathing spell in which to consider what he should do, if indeed he could do anything.

The departure of his captors gave him courage and some measure of hope.

Freedom he did not hope for, but a brief respite from peril was his.

Time, time! What the doomed crave and pray for. That, at least was his.

He had presence of mind enough to refrain from making any sound, for the thieves might still be in the neighborhood for all he knew. The last he had heard of them they had been talking of ”handling her” and ”giving her a shove” and he did not want them to come back and ”handle” _him_.

So he sat on the rear seat of the big Hunkajunk car ready to withdraw beneath the robe at the first sound of approaching footsteps. If he had been free to make a companionable noise, to whistle or to hum, or to listen to the friendly sound of his own movements he would have felt less frightened. But the need of absolute silence in that dark prison agitated him, and in the ghostly stillness every creak made the place seem haunted.

If he could only have seen where he was! He knew now something of the insane terrors of dark and solitary confinement. So strongly did this terror hold him that for a minute or two he dared not stir upon the seat for fear of causing the least sound which the darkness and strangeness of the place might conjure into spectral voices.