XIX—BRENT GETS HIS WISH
One thing about those men, they weren’t very good scouts, I’ll say that much. The only good turn they did was to turn around and drive away. Maybe the Union wouldn’t let them do good turns; Unions have got no use for good turns.
First we decided that we’d stop at the nearest house, but one thing about scouts, they don’t like to ask for help unless they have to. But if you offer them something to eat it’s all right for them to take it.
I said to Brent, “Well, you were crazy for an adventure, now you’ve got one.”
He said, “I don’t care about such a sticky one. I’m not exactly what you would call crazy about tar shower baths.”
“You’ll have to cut your hair off, that’s one sure thing,” I told him; “you’ll never be able to get that stuff out of your hair.”
“I’d like to sit down, too,” he said; “but if I did, I could never get up again. I think the sooner I’m fixed up the better. Let’s run the van alongside the road and get inside and see what we can do. Our friend’s suit of clothes is still in there. After boasting about my dreams of adventure it seems rather tame to go into somebody’s back kitchen for repairs. I’m afraid Harry would indulge in a gentle smile.”
“He’d indulge in a gentle fit if he saw you now,” I told him.
“I say let’s not go to anybody for assistance,” Pee-wee spoke up. “We can get gasoline out of the tank, so you can wash the tar off your face, and I’ve got a folding scissors in my scout knife. I’ll cut your hair for you.”
“How would you like to have it cut?” I asked him, just kidding him.
“I think I’d like it cut dark,” he said.
I said, “Well, we’ll cut it short and then if you don’t like it we’ll cut it longer.”
So we decided that we wouldn’t depend on anybody but would act just the same as if we were on a desert island where there weren’t any barbers and bathtubs and things, because Columbus and Daniel Boone didn’t have barbers and bathtubs and things.
“They depended upon their own initials,” Pee-wee said.
“You mean initiative,” I told him.
He said, “What’s the difference?”
So then I ran the machine over to the side of the road right close to a kind of a grove and we got some gas out of the tank and Brent and I went inside the van. We told Pee-wee to stay outside so as to keep people from opening the doors or fooling with the car, because we were in the village and we thought maybe people would be hanging around.
There was only one thing to do with Brent’s hair, and that was to cut it off, because the tar was so thick there that the gasoline wouldn’t melt it. I made a pretty good job of it with the little folding scissors in Pee-wee’s scout knife. We managed to get most of the tar off his face with the gasoline, but it left his face kind of all black and sooty looking.
He couldn’t sit down or lean against anything on account of the tar all over his clothes, so he took them off and I handed them out to Pee-wee and told him to throw them in the grove. Then Brent put on the convict’s suit, and he looked awful funny in it with his dirty face and his hair all cut short.
He said, “At last the dream of my young life has come true; I am a criminal. The only thing is I haven’t committed my crime yet.”
I said, “Oh, you needn’t be in any hurry about that.”
He said, “But it seems sort of false for me to be wearing a convict’s suit when I haven’t committed any crime. It seems like deceiving people. It troubles my conscience. And I haven’t really escaped either. What would you do if you were me? I don’t want to disgrace the uniform I wear. I wish I could think of some nice easy crime. I feel nice and clean in these things, anyway. But my conscience is black. Do you suppose there’s a bank in this burg, and a jail? I was thinking if I could just let myself down by a rope. Only it would be just my luck to have a cell on the ground floor.”
I said, “The best cell for you is right in this little old van, at least till we get out of town. You leave the rope business to Douglas Fairbanks. If anybody in this place should see you, good night, Sister Anne! And it isn’t any joke, either. Now you’ve got your wish, you’ll see it isn’t going to be as much fun as you thought it was.”
Brent sat down on an old grocery box that we had inside the van, and, jiminetty, I had to laugh, he had such a funny way about him. He looked awful tough, sort of, without his hair. He said, “Well, I appoint you my keeper. I hope I’m not such a cheap sort of a criminal as to try to escape from a delivery van. A stone dungeon or nothing for me.” Gee whiz, that fellow’s particular.
Just then the plot grew thicker—oh, boy! One of the doors of the van opened and Pee-wee squeezed in. He had a big piece of paper in his hand. He said, “I went up the road a little way—shh!”
I said, “I thought it was kind of quiet outside.”
He said, “Shh, look at this; it was tacked to a tree. We’re in desperate peril——”
Brent said, “In which?”
“Read this,” the kid whispered. “I didn’t see it till after I threw the clothes away and they floated down the brook. Dangers thicken—look at this.” He got those words out of the movies, dangers thicken.
Brent and I read the printing on the paper and this is what it said:
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
Offered for information leading to the recapture of Mike Donovan, alias Rinky, escaped from Indiana State Prison. Was serving term of fifteen years for burglary and child murder. Slender of stature. Five feet nine inches in height. Is supposed to have relations in the east. Age about nineteen. Is known to be a desperate character, having served terms in New York and Pennsylvania for burglary and highway robbery.
There was some more, about who to notify and all that, but I can’t remember the rest. Brent took the paper from me and sat there on the grocery box in the dim light with the doors closed, reading it. It seemed awfully dark and secret, kind of, in there.
He said, “Larceny, child murder, burglary, and highway robbery. That isn’t so bad, is it? That’s really more than I expected. I haven’t lived in vain.”
“You’ll live in a jail, that’s where you’ll live,” Pee-wee whispered. “What are we going to do?”
“You ought to know,” I told him, “a scout is resourceful.”