“I don’t know, I never saw a robber’s den,” I told him.
“But if there was a robber’s den it would look like that, wouldn’t it?” he shouted at me. “Didn’t we get all excited? Wasn’t that an adventure? It’s better than a lot of nonsense like you usually have in your crazy hike stories.”
All the time we were going down the main street of Bagley Center and Dub and Sandy were laughing at us. Pretty soon we came to a candy store and we went in and got some cones. Sandy said he would pay for them out of the reward we didn’t get. We all sat along the counter eating them. The man—gee, he was a nice man—he stood there talking to us. Dub asked him if he knew the moving picture people over at the chasm.
He said, “You mean the folks that was doing that Cumberland Mountain stuff? Yes, they often come over here. Guess they’re pretty near finished, ain’t they? I heard they was finishing up. That’s a pretty clever youngster they got with them, so I hear. You boys seen him? Dresses up like one of you Scout fellers. What’s his name—Bunko Bravado, is it? He’s only ’bout sixteen or so. He was in here after some candy one day. Yes, they’re a great lot. I see a picture down to Peekskill last winter had that kid in it. Why they threw him off a big cliff and the next you see he was swimming in the water. Gave me the shivers. He’s escaping from a band of kidnappers, or something or other like that, over in the chasm, so I hear.”
Dub said, “I bet it’s hard candy he eats.”
“Sure, rock candy,” Sandy said.
The man said, “I think it was marshmallows.”
Pee-wee didn’t bother saying anything till he finished his cone—he was too busy. Then, all of a sudden he opened up.
“That shows how much you don’t know,” he said to the man, “because boys in moving pictures are a lot of bluffs. That was just a dummy they threw off the cliff. They don’t do real things like Scouts do. Some of them do like Douglas Fairbanks, but most of them, I can do better things myself—thrilling and all that.”
“Douglas Fairbanks is terribly jealous of him,” I said to the man. “If you should see Douglas Fairbanks, don’t mention the name of Scout Harris, whatever you do—it only makes trouble.”