“You mean thither,” Pee-wee said.
“I said to myself, ‘They will have to kill me to take me alive,’” Brent said.
“Anyway, you killed him?” I asked him.
He said, “I killed him in cold blood—anyway it wasn’t more than lukewarm. I tore him to pieces and took his clothes and concealed my telltale convict stripes under a weeping willow. It was weeping its eyes out.”
“It’s a wonder it wasn’t laughing,” I told him.
He said, “The poor fellow was as thin as a stick; his arms were made of a cross stick, I think it was a broom stick. He lies under the marsh grass in yonder swamp. And I am free!”
“You’re crazy too,” the kid shouted.
“I said I would escape and I did,” Brent began to laugh. “I decided that I would escape from the very people who claim to be the most alert and wide-awake—the boy scouts. You say I’m crazy. Very well, even a crazy person can foil the boy scouts. I suppose that’s what you call logic.”
“That’s what you call nonsense,” Pee-wee yelled.
“I hope you boys had a good nap while I was escaping,” Brent said. “It was a shame to do it, it was so easy. I tried to leave good plain footprints, I did all that an honest convict could to help you, but in vain. I doubt if the boy scouts could trail a steam roller. As for the authorities of Barrow’s Homestead ... but I’ve seen enough of crime and its evil results.” That’s just the way he talked. “Henceforth I mean to be honest.”