"Just the one," said Scoutmaster Ned. "She'll keep you company and you'll have a little peace with this youngster gone. Mrs. Piper, if I had my way I'd chloroform every boy in creation. I wonder you look so young with a wild Indian like that around."
"Oh, I ain't lookin' so young," she smiled, greatly pleased.
Before she realized it she was shaking hands with Scoutmaster Ned while her other arm was around Peter. "I'm going to come here and stay a month," the young man said. "I'm going to churn butter and eat pie--if I can escape from that outfit. Well good-bye, we're off. I hope the old bus runs."
"It looks reel smart with all the blue paint," said Mrs. Piper.
"Handsome is as handsome does," said Scoutmaster Ned. "Climb in, Pete, what are you scared of? It won't eat you. Anybody'd think you were stalking--stepping so carefully. Know what stalking is? They'll show you."
Mrs. Piper stood holding her gingham apron to her eyes as they rode off. It was of exactly the same pattern as Peter's shirt. He looked funny sitting rather fearfully on the front seat. She had never dreamed of seeing him enthroned amid such sumptuousness. Perhaps some day he would go away and come back rich--a hero. Her Peter. And this stranger liked him. She was weeping because she had never heard her boy called Pete since his father died. She liked to hear him called Pete, it was so friendly, and recalled the past so vividly....
As if Scoutmaster Ned would have called him anything else than Pete!
CHAPTER XXXVII
HINTS
They showed him. As Scoutmaster Ned had told him they would do, they showed him. And Peter Piper was in dreamland; it was all too good to be true. They showed him how to track and stalk. And how to signal.