“Here’s your stuff,” Pee-wee said; “we brought it back to you.” And he marched into the house with the rest of us after him. “Where shall I put it down?” he asked her.
Even the girl couldn’t help laughing, the kid looked so funny. Then she began wringing her hands, kind of happy like (you know the way they do), and shouted, “Mother! Oh, Mother! Come down! Everything is here, they’ve brought it back!”
Her mother came downstairs all excited, and I guess she must have thought it was kind of funny, too, to see us all standing around, and the punch bowl, with everything piled inside it, on a table, and Pee-wee standing right beside it like a guard.
She said, “Oh, Constable! How did you do it? How can we ever thank you? You don’t mean that these boys—stole——”
“I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout it, Miss West,” he said; “it seems these here youngsters recovered it. I don’t know what sort of clew they worked on. Looks as if they was pretty clever, I got to admit. Looks like some p-u-r-t-y shrewd de-tective work, I got to allow.”
Then Harry spoke up and said, “Mrs. West and Miss West, it is the privilege of the Boy Scouts to restore your valuable property which was stolen. Doubtless you have heard of the Miracle Man; allow me to introduce him, Mr. Walter Harris, known far and wide as Pee-wee the Sleuth. Tell them, Walter, of how we got on the trail of this treasure, of the clews we followed, and of how you ferreted out the secret of where the valuables lay hidden. It is really a wonderful story, Mrs. West.”
“Oh do tell us,” the girl began crying; “I know you’re just wonderful—Mr. Harris.”
All the while, Pee-wee was shifting from one foot to another and scowling at Harry, and looking uncomfortable.
“Scouts seldom go wrong, Miss West,” Harry said to the girl; “even in the darkness of night, they cannot be foiled. Their senses are so highly developed, and they are so alert, that missing a train, for instance, or getting onto the wrong train, are things unknown to them. A scout is unerring. He can even identify a tree among thousands of other trees, in the dense forest——”
“Isn’t that perfectly wonderful!” Elsa West said.