The two severe eyes stared down at the compass on the rail but their owner made no attempt to reach it as Pee-wee started off. If Pee-wee had not been so worried and preoccupied he would have thought that he had never seen anything so absurdly amusing in all his life.
“Come back and say good-by,” the little voice commanded.
Pee-wee returned and stood in the exact spot where he had stood before and said, “Good-by.” Although the little pale face did not turn the fraction of an inch, the staring eyes followed Pee-wee as he went along the road.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE TRAMPLED TRAIL
Pee-wee felt as if he were emerging from some enchanted spot in the “Arabian Nights,” abounding with giants and men “getting dead.” He had no more belief in what this imperious little imp had told him than he had in the predictions of Licorice Stick, or the homely superstitions of Pepsy.
Indeed, if he had thought seriously of these erratic snapshot bits of information about figures wriggling in the dark and “getting dead” he would never have mentioned these things to Licorice Stick whom he ran plunk into as that aggregation of rags and nonsense sat upon a stone wall up the road engaged in the profitable occupation of watching the passing cars. Licorice Stick’s business was contemplating the world and he always attended strictly to business.
“Lordy me!” he said, rolling his eyes, “you don’ go nowheres that kid ’e tell you. Dat wrigglin’ man, he no man, he a sperrit. Don’ you go near dat bridge, you get a spell. Yo keep away f’m dat bridge.”
How much this had to do with Pee-wee’s actually going to the scene of the fire it would be hard to say. If he had not talked with Whitie he probably would not have gone. At all events, he had nothing else to do and he wanted to think. So he followed the trail through the woods to the highway.
It seemed quite probable that Whitie’s jerky sentences were about true, that the doctor had been compelled to turn back by reason of the burning bridge. The fact that Whitie was holding his imperial court on the doctor’s porch made this part of his story seem true.