There was only one difficulty in the way of this heroic course and that was that he could not run the car. Never again would he touch one of those frightful nickel things on the instrument board. So, wishing to handle this harrowing situation alone, with true scout prowess and resource, he kicked around among the ruins of that tyrannous and fallen empire, and tried to devise some plan.
Suddenly he heard a sound near him. He paused in the darkness, his scout heel upon a poor, defenseless crumpled spelling book. Thus he stood in mingled triumph and agitation, his heart beating fast, every nerve on edge.
"Who--who's there?" he said.
He moved again, and was startled as his foot slipped off the charred timber on which he was walking. The brisk autumn wind was playing havoc among the debris, blowing damp pages over faster than anyone could turn them. It played among a burned chest of old examination papers, scattering them like dried leaves. Correct or incorrect, they were all the same now. Pee-wee liked this roving, unruly wind, having its own way in that dominion of restriction. He liked its gay disregard of all this solemn claptrap.
But now he heard clearly the sound of footsteps among the ruins, footsteps picking their way as it seemed to him, through the uncertain support of all that various disorder. Groping, careful footfalls.
"Who's there?" he asked. And the only answer was a gust of wind.
Could it be those thieves in search of him? Or might it be the ghost of some principal or teacher lingering still among these remnants and reminders of authority?
Step, step--step.
Then from around the corner of a charred, up-ended platform appeared a face. A face with a cap drawn low over it. And presently a dark form emerged.
"Who--who are--you?" Pee-wee stammered.