Gee, I could hardly keep a straight face. The men just stood there staring, and Harry just sat there with his arms folded on the steering wheel, smiling just as nice as could be. Poor little Skinny was clinging to his arm. Pee-wee and Grove and I sat on the back seat trying not to laugh. Those men looked at us as if they thought it was funny for boy scouts to be there, but we should worry about them. Our consciences were clear, only we were hungry.
“Look here, you,” the big man said to Harry; “you got to explain your movements—and your actions.”
“Our actions can’t be explained,” Harry said; “we’re all crazy. But anything we can do to accommodate you——”
All the while the other two men were poking around in the creek with sticks. The big man shook his finger right in Harry’s face and said, “You’re the feller that was in Wade’s Hotel in Utica with a car with a New York license. You were seen there. You had some stolen property in that car. You’ve changed your license plate since then. Been in Crystal Falls ain’t you? Get out of there, you kids, and let me look under that seat. What are you doing with a crowd of young boys in this car, anyway?”
Harry said, “My goodness, what a lot of questions! You’re a regular questionnaire, aren’t you? Get up, boys.”
We got up and he dug around under the back seat, but didn’t find anything. Then he dug in the side pockets and, good night, there were our “papers” as Pee-wee called them.
He said, “What’s all this, eh?”
Harry said, “Those? Oh, those are just some papers. One of them is a letter, and let’s see, those two are newspaper articles and the other is a description of a tree. Do you like trees? We’re crazy about trees.”
Oh, boy, you should have seen that man. He read those papers over and scowled. “Train robbed, huh?” he said. “Shootin’ goin’ on, huh? Now, who are you, anyway, and who did you throw out of this car, and where did you get this car, and where did you get this here license plate that you’re using?”
Harry said, “Well, it’s a long story and really it would be a shame to tell it, unless we were all sitting around the camp-fire. We’re a band of adventurers and we’re on our way to see what will happen next. Our specialties are murder, burglary, treasure hunting and food, when we can get it. Going to be warm to-day, don’t you think so?”