"Oh, ain't you? Well you do as I tell you and you'll be all right. You do as I tell you if you want to get a ride home; see? Mr. Bartlett and me are grown-up men, we are, and we know what's the right way to do.

When a kid is told to do something he's gotter do it. You know so much about them scout kids; don't you know that?"

"I'll take care of this here car of Mr. Bartlett's. The next house we come to I'm going to stop and let you out a little way past it and you're going to show what you can do; you're going to go back and 'phone to tell Mr. Bartlett we're on our way, and I'll wait for you."

"You wanted me to do that at a house that was empty and where there wasn't any 'phone; I could tell because there weren't any wires. Do you think scouts can't see things? You just want to get rid of me, that's all. You want to get rid of me where there aren't any 'phones or people or anything. Gee, maybe I'm not as strong as you, but anyway I know what you're up to, that's one sure thing."

"Are you going to do as I tell you?"

"I'm a scout and I'm not going to get out till you put me out, so there."

Slowly the big car moved up the rocky hill and around the bend and the finding light which had been focused on the church shifted its area of distant brightness until Mr. Swiper turned it off just as the two big headlights threw their glare along the straight level road.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE ROAD IS CLOSED," SAID PETER.]

The small figure in the shabby gray sweater and tough looking cap was nervous and apprehensive and angry with a righteous anger. But he did not tremble like the poor little lonely figure waiting in the darkness with eyes fixed upon those two dazzling, glaring eyes.

Five-o-seven-nine-two. There it is, Peter; read it again as the car draws nearer to make sure. Yes, that is a _five_. Five-o-seven-nine-two.

Don't you see the little gilt eagle on the radiator? He trembled, oh how he trembled.

"Looker here, you kid," said the driver to the huddled up figure beside him; "I once croaked a boy scout that didn't do what I told him. Do you see? I _croaked_ him. No scout kid can put anything over on me; I won't have any kids interfering with my plans--"

Oh yes you will, Mr. Swiper. You may have escaped from jail, the authorities of a dozen states may be after you. But just the same you are going to stop when a little trembling pioneer scout in homespun pantaloons tells you to. Look ahead, where that dim light is, Mr.

Swiper, with the cropped hair. Do you see something shining there, held in a little trembling hand? That is a knife, Mr. Swiper. The trembling hand that holds that knife belongs to a soul possessed, Mr. Swiper. He is crazed with a high resolve. See how he shakes? Oh he is not thinking of _you_. He is thinking of the car, Mr. Swiper. He is not himself at all and he is going to slash your tires if you pa.s.s that rope, Mr.

Swiper. So you see?

For it is said that opportunity knocks once at everyone's door, Mr.

Swiper. It came to you on the ruins of that old school. And it has come away down here, Mr. Swiper, and knocked on the door of Peter Piper, pioneer scout, of Piper's Crossroads.

CHAPTER XXIII

PETER FINDS A WAY

"What's all this?" asked Mr. Swiper, as the car came to a stop before the rope.

With hand shaking and heart thumping, but borne up by a towering resolve, Peter took his stand beside one of the front wheels. "The--the road is--it's closed," he said, his voice trembling. The hand which held the knife stole below the shiny mud-guard and rested on the smooth, unyielding rubber. "The road is closed," he repeated.

Mr. Swiper climbed down out of the car, muttering an oath. He looked apprehensively back along the road and being sure of no danger there he crossed the rope and advanced a few yards along the road to inspect it.

Peter was in the grip of terrible fear, fear at his own boldness. His whole form trembled. He did not stop to think, he knew that if he were going to do anything effectual it must be in those few brief moments.

There are many ways to cripple an auto without damaging it, but Peter knew nothing of autos except that they went by gasoline.

In an emergency he would have slashed a tire even while the machine moved. Now that he had a little time in which to think he hurried behind the auto and crawling beneath it turned on the outlet of the gas tank.

He knew that the tank was in back and that there must be a pipe leading from it. He had intended to wrench the thin pipe away, when his groping, trembling fingers stumbled on the outlet c.o.c.k. This he turned on with as much terror as if he were setting fire to the universe.

Aghast at his own inspiration and boldness, he stood behind the car, shaking all over, as he heard the precious fuel running away in a steady stream and pattering on the road. Well, he would take the consequences of this decisive act. From the moment he had seen those glaring headlights and realized that he was partic.i.p.ating in a reality, he had been frantic, wondering what to do. Well, now he had "gone and done it"

and he was terror-stricken at his own act. The mere wasting of so much gasoline was a terrible thing in the homely life of poor Peter.

He paused behind the car listening. He had not the courage to go forward. He listened as the liquid fuel flowed away and trickled over the spare tire-rack, and his beating heart seemed to keep time with it.

Ah, you Hunkajunk touring model with all your thousand delights, you cannot get along without this trickling liquid any better than your lowly brother, the humble Ford. Would _all_ of it flow away before that terrible man came back?

Now Peter heard voices in front of the car; the man had returned, and was speaking to his confederate, his pal.

"I won't get out of the car and I won't desert it," he heard the small stranger announce st.u.r.dily.

"Didn't you say you were with me?"

"I did, but I--"

"Then shut up. The road's all right; there's nothing the matter with it; this is some kind of a frame-up. Did you come along this way when you copped it before; I mean you and that pair?"

"I don't know, I was under the buffalo robe."

They were thieves all right; Peter knew it now. And his a.s.surance on this point gave him courage. The strangers would be no safer to deal with, but at least Peter knew now that he had the right on his side. In a sudden burst of impulsive resolution he stepped around and in a spirit of utter recklessness spoke up. His own voice sounded strange to him.

"I--I know what you are--you're thieves," he said. "I can--I can tell by the way you talk--and--and you--you can't take the car--even an inch you can't--because all the gasoline is gone out of it and I did it and I don't care--and you--you can _kill_ me if you want to only you can't take the car. And--and--pretty soon Ham Sanders will be along with the milk cans and he's not afraid of you--"

"What did you say about ham?" Pee-wee shouted down at him.

"Ham Sanders," Peter called back defiantly.

"I though you said ham sandwich," Pee-wee retorted.

"He can--he's even--he can even handle a bull," shouted Peter, carried away by excitement. "All the--the--gasoline is gone--it is--because now I can hear it stop dripping--so--now--_now_ what are you going to do?

So?"

CHAPTER XXIV

DESERTED

Mr. Swiper lost no time upon hearing Peter's startling announcement.

Rushing to the back of the car he confirmed the information by a frantically hurried inspection, keeping up a running fire of curses the while. For a manual training teacher he was singularly profane.

Nor did he tarry to administer any corporeal rebukes, more than to send poor Peter reeling as he brushed him aside with imprecations in his flight. Since the auto had been so generously handed to him by a kind boy scout, perhaps the loss of it was not such a shock as it might otherwise have been. There were other autos.

Mr. Swiper saved himself and that was his chief concern. He was not going to take any chances with Ham Sanders. In the last few miles of their inglorious journey, Pee-wee had been trouble enough to him and how to get rid of that redoubtable youngster had been a question. So Mr.

Swiper paused not to make an issue of Peter Piper's audacious act. He withdrew into the shelter of the woods and in the fullness of time to the more secure shelter of an Illinois penitentiary where he was entered under the name of Chick Swiper, alias Chick the Speeder, alias Chick the Gent, alias the Car King, alias Jack Skidder--perhaps because he was so slippery.

In his official pedigree there was nothing about his being a manual training teacher, though he must have had some knowledge of the use of tools for he removed the bars from his cell window with praiseworthy skill, and was later caught in Michigan, I think.

So there sat Pee-wee glaring down upon Peter, still frightened at himself for the stir that he had made in the great world.