Part 13 (1/2)

”I'm not, I'm sleepy,” Pee-wee shouted. ”Have you got anything to say around here?”

”Well, I _think_ I have, I'm constable,” said Ham.

”Then why aren't you sure?” Pee-wee retorted. ”Just because I don't know where I am it doesn't say I don't know what I'm talking about, does it? Will you help me drive this automobile back? You'll get some money if you do. I had an adventure with a couple of thieves and I foiled them; they've got seventy pistols. I was watching The Bandit of Harrowing Highway--”

”You got into bad company, youngster,” said Ham, surveying Pee-wee's rakish cap and lawless looking sweater. ”You ought to be thankful you got a chance to get rid of that sort o' company. You're kinder young, I reckon, ain't you? Gosh, I calculate you ain't more'n four foot high.

Kinder young to be mixed up in stealings.”

”You're the one that's mixed up,” Pee-wee shouted, ”and anyway size doesn't count. You can--you can steal things if you're--you're only a foot high--if you want to and--”

”How about all this, Peter?” asked his friend confidentially.

”I'll tell you,” Pee-wee shouted; ”I had a lot of adventures, I know two men that have, _shh_, they have _dead ones to their credit_! I circ.u.m--what d'you call it--vented them, and that man that just ran away, he was a traitor, but I can--”

”Can you keep still a second? One look at you is enough,” said Ham Sanders.

”I've--I've got--three scout suits,” Pee-wee began.

”Like enough you stole 'em,” said Ham. ”You're one of them runners for crooks, that's what you are. I know the kind; they have you to climb in the windows for 'em and all that. Now you keep still a minute if you know what's best for you.”

In a brief and threatened few moments of silence Peter told in a whisper how he had seen the signal and read it and stopped the car, and of the flight of the head thief, as he called him. Between these two excited youngsters Ham hardly knew what to believe. He certainly did not believe in talking lights appearing over graveyards. Nor did he credit Pee-wee's vehement and choppy account of bandits with seventy pistols.

”Whar are these here dead ones?” he asked, rather confused. ”Over yonder in the graveyard?”

”How do I know where they are?” Pee-wee shouted. ”Do you know what blackjacks are?”

”Dots and dashes, you can do it with lights too,” said Peter; ”they tell the truth. If he says signals lie that shows he isn't a scout anyway, and anybody can see he isn't. I stopped them, I did it by myself.”

”That's nothing,” Pee-wee shouted from the seat, ”I nearly got suffocated, I'm more of a hero than you are. That man that ran away he--he--_duped_ me. This car--will you listen--this car--”

”It's stolen; _I_ know,” said Peter.

”It _was_ stolen but it _isn't_ stolen,” Pee-wee fairly screamed. ”Can't a thing be stolen and then not stolen? It's being--being rescued--”

”It's being stolen, the other thief ran away,” Peter persisted. ”He--he admits he was friends with a thief! He's a thief too, he is.”

”Maybe Jim disguised--kind of--as a thief,” Pee-wee conceded.

”He's trying to be disguised as a scout,” poor Peter said.

”I was a scout before you or anybody else was born,” Pee-wee shouted.

”He isn't,” said Peter.

”I am,” said Pee-wee.

Ham Sanders scratched his head, looking from one to the other, then looked appealingly at his familiar milk cans. Perhaps he expected to see them dancing around in this Bedlam.

”I'm gonter hev both of you youngsters before the peace justice,” he finally said; ”we'll soon find out what's wrong here. Climb down out o'