“Guess not,” he grumbled.
There is something very disturbing about a train stopping suddenly. And this is the more so because it is so difficult to get information from the powers in control. They hurry back and forth in a mysterious manner possible of the gravest interpretation and no one is the wiser.
On this occasion, however, the passengers in the first car were fortunate in receiving their information directly from headquarters. It seemed to be poured down on them from above in buckets full. It streamed in through the open windows on the breeze. Nothing was withheld.
“I stopped the train because on account of not knowing if the switch was open,” Pee-wee shouted. “I shinnied up the gate and it went down and it wouldn’t come up again and I didn’t have any supper yet. I bumped against the handle and moved it, that’s why I stopped the train and a goat ate my chum’s driver’s license so he got arrested but anyway he’s coming back. I heard the train whistling and, gee whiz, I hurried and I didn’t have any supper yet.”
There was quite a little furore. The conductor seemed to think that Pee-wee was much to be blamed; he spoke severely about small boys meddling with railroad property, and so on and so on. The men passengers took a different view. They agreed with Pee-wee and thought he was a hero, which was just what he thought himself. The women passengers were staggered at the idea of his not having had any supper.
Some of the people stood about on the ground while others gazed from car platforms and windows while the hero (who was certainly the centre of attraction) was assisted down from his aerial prison by means of a stout rope which had been hastily brought out of the baggage car.
This Pee-wee fastened to the cross-beam in the tower house and dangling it thence down and out through the window was able to make a truly scoutish descent, locking each foot in a turn of the rope as he lowered himself.
“Don’t hold on to it,” he shouted, “because the end of it has to be loose, that’s the way you can come down from a house when it’s on fire.”
“Well, sir,” said a stern voice among the curious, flattering throng; “so this is Doctor Harris’ boy, eh? Well, now, what are you doing here?”
Upon realizing the staggering fact that he was being addressed by Justice Dopett of Grantly Square, Bridgeboro, Pee-wee nearly collapsed. And naturally enough, for Justice Dopett was not only the friend and neighbor of John Temple, founder of Temple Camp, but a scout councilman as well and a very devoted friend and patron of the local organization. He was Bridgeboro’s most distinguished citizen (with the exception of Pee-wee himself) and he was known far and wide.