CHAPTER XII

THE REWARD

Pee-wee was so excited he could hardly speak. “We don’t have to hurry,” he said, “because nobody saw me--I didn’t make a sound. Listen, it’s bandits! I crept around to the other side of the place and there isn’t any canvas there at all. The top is all covered with brush like you said and underneath there’s a couple of blankets where people sleep. _Listen_--there are pistols--three of them--one great big one--I _saw_ them. And I saw a mask or something like bandits use--black. Even a shotgun I saw--listen--there’s nobody in there now, but you can bet I didn’t wait.”

“Are you sure you’re not dreaming?” I asked him.

“Do you think I don’t know a dream when I see one?” he said. “Do you call a shotgun and pistols and a burglar’s mask all things like that a dream? And you needn’t say that it’s somebody hunting because this isn’t the hunting season so you needn’t say it. And nobody ever goes camping like that--no _sireeee_. I know who’s hiding there all right. It’s those bandits that robbed the post office in Warnerville and we can get the reward and I’m the one that wanted to sneak up and you said no, so that shows how much you don’t know--it’s good I didn’t do like you said because now you got the proof I didn’t get killed. And I bet this cleft is where they came down, too. We’d better get away from here.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said.

“_Oh boy_, that’s some discovery!” he said. “It’s even almost better than finding that will. And anyway I’m elected leader now because I discovered them so I’m going to be the one to say what we’ll do.”

I said, “It was a very exciting election, I’ll say that. All right, kid, come ahead back. I guess you win to-night. What are we going to do about it?”

He said, all excited, “To-morrow morning early we’re going to go to Bagley Center and tell the police--that’s the nearest village. Oh boy, we’ll get the reward because I saw a bulletin in the Catskill Post Office and I think it’s a thousand dollars, anyway there were a lot of naughts----”

“Maybe the naughts were upside down,” I said. I had to laugh he was so excited.

“There was a five and a lot of naughts,” he said, “and now I’m sorry I didn’t count them. Then after we get the reward we’ll find the will and Mr. Bagley will get his land and he’ll sell it to Temple Camp--and do you know what let’s do?”

“Break it to me gently,” I said.

“We’ll have about a thousand dollars anyway and we’ll build a troop cabin in that new land, away off in the woods, and we won’t let anybody come there. We’ll be kind of different from everybody at camp, hey? Maybe we’ll let visitors come to see us--because I bet a lot of people will want to see us, hey, especially girls. Even we’ll be _double_ heroes.”

Then he came up for air and he didn’t say any more till we got to camp, only trudged along beside me very important. He was starting in being a hero already. When we got to camp he went marching up and started trampling out the little fire. I guess Dub and Sandy thought he was crazy.

“What’s the idea?” Sandy wanted to know.

“I’ll tell you as soon as the fire is out,” Pee-wee said, very mysterious like.

They looked at me and I just said, “Ask the kid, he’s the big hero to-night.”

“I found the place where those bandits are hiding,” Pee-wee said. “We have to be careful and not have any light. To-morrow morning we’re going up to Bagley Center to tell the police.”

I said, “Don’t look at me, you heard what he said.”

I guess none of us slept very much that night, I know _I_ didn’t. I kept hearing sounds all the time and once I thought somebody was creeping up to our tent. I was sorry we didn’t go up to the village right away as soon as we found that camp but the other fellows thought every one would be in bed. I just lay there listening for sounds. Once I fell asleep and I had a dream that I found old Mr. Bagley’s last will and I was just going to go and give it to him when one of those bandits pointed a pistol at me and was just going to shoot me when Pee-wee threw a tomato at him and I started to run. Jiminies, when you travel with Pee-wee there’s something doing even when you’re asleep.

He got us up at about five o’clock in the morning, you’d have thought we were going to catch a train. I said, “I’d rather be a bandit, then I wouldn’t have to get up so early.”

He said, “We better have strong coffee on account of what we’re going to do.”

I was so sleepy I hardly knew what I was saying. I staggered up against Dub--he was as bad as I was.

“How much is it--ten thousand dollars?” he stammered.

“You mean the reward?” I said. I didn’t know what I was saying I was so sleepy. “Search me, all I know is it’s got a five and a lot of naughts. I don’t even know if the naughts are in front of the five or after it. It may be one five thousandth of a cent for all I know, we should worry, where’s the coffee-pot? We’re all mixed up with so much money and I haven’t got enough for an ice cream cone when we get to Bagley Center. That’s one thing I don’t like about robbers, they get you up so early in the morning.”

“Suppose the wind shouldn’t be blowing toward Bagley Center?” Sandy said. He was so dopey he couldn’t find the sugar and he handed me the bottle of iodine.

“Then we can’t go,” I said.

“Are you going to start your crazy nonsense?” the kid wanted to know. “Are you going to wake up and have some sense?”

After we had our coffee we got awake and we started being serious. Because I had to admit that robbers are no laughing matter. Anyway Pee-wee wasn’t any laughing matter.

“Do you think it’s a joke getting five thousand dollars maybe?” he said.

“That’s no joke,” I said. “Come on, I’m going to start in being serious. Who’s going to be serious?”

“I am,” Dub said.

“Same here,” Sandy said.

“I’ll even cry if you want me to,” I said to Pee-wee.

If you look at my specially made map you’ll see there’s a dotted line going from Beaver Chasm to Bagley Center, and it’s a dandy dotted line, too. I made it good and slow. But I like to make railroads and brooks better. All through there is woods. That dotted line is a trail. But, believe me, you wouldn’t care anything about Bagley Center. But there’s one good thing about it, I didn’t see any school there. The trail runs right into the village--it’s the only thing in the village that runs. I was wondering where Mr. Bagley lived.

“Maybe he’d be a good one to tell,” Pee-wee said, “because don’t you know how he said he was away a lot and had adventures before he came home to stay?”

I said, “No, I think we better go to the police because they’re the right ones to go to.”

There wasn’t anybody up in the village, anyway we didn’t see anybody. Only one man we saw and he was driving down the street in a wagon with milk cans. He turned around and kept staring at us. Pretty soon we came to a house where there was a girl sweeping off the porch. I guess maybe she was a Girl Scout or something like that because she had a khaki blouse on. She was busy, sweeping good and hard.

Pee-wee said, “Let’s ask her where the police station is, hey?”

“Sure,” I said, “I’ll ask her. Only maybe she’s sweeping in her sleep, it’s so early. I wouldn’t want to wake her up.”

“If she’s asleep she’ll tell you so,” Dub said.

“I never thought of that,” I told him.

“Are you thinking about getting the robbers arrested or are you thinking about being a fool?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

I went up to the girl and I said, “Hey, girl, are you awake because we’d like to ask you a question?”

“Don’t you pay any attention to him because he’s a fool,” Pee-wee said. “Will you please tell us where the police station is?”

She stopped sweeping and she looked kind of surprised and she said, “It’s on Main Street and it’s right next to the Fire House.”

I said, “Can you get any ice cream cones anywhere around there?”

“Don’t you pay any attention to him,” Pee-wee piped up, “because it’s serious business--so do you think the police are up yet?”

She said, “Goodness me, I don’t know, but if you’re hungry _I_ can give you something to eat. I shouldn’t think you’d want ice cream cones so early in the morning. I just bet you’re Boy Scouts and you’re lost. Do you know where you are?”

“We’re here,” I said.

“Oh I just bet you’re lost,” she said. “Because you don’t belong in this town. I bet you belong over at that big camp and I bet you’ve been out all night and don’t know where you are. Last summer two boys that belonged over at that camp, they were such smarties they got lost and they thought this was Snowden Hollow and they had to go to the police station and get something to eat and three girls showed them how to get back to their camp. Oh I just almost _died_ laughing! The whole village was laughing about it.”

“That would be only about five people anyway,” I said. “It wouldn’t be enough to make a good laugh. We’ve had as many as thirty or forty people laughing at us,” I said.

“Even fifty,” Pee-wee said, “and besides, you think you’re so smart, we’re not lost at all and if you knew what we came to this town for you’d even be scared. And besides sometimes Boy Scouts get lost on purpose----”

“And they get hungry on purpose, too,” Dub said.

“They get lost so they can find their way,” the kid shouted at her. “That shows how much prowess they’ve got.”

“We carry it around in our pockets,” I told her. “And resources, too, we have plenty of them. How can you find your way if you don’t get lost? Anybody that knows short division can do that.”

The girl just sat down on the steps and kept on laughing and laughing and laughing. She said, “That’s just too funny! They get lost so they can find their way! _Oh dear!_”

I said, “I know even funnier things than that.”

“That’s all girls can do--_giggle_,” the kid said. “When they get in a boat they scream, and when they see a mouse they scream, and when they see a spider they scream, and they’re scared of snakes and caterpillars, especially toads, and all they can do is giggle. Anyway just to show you how smart you’re not with your giggling and laughing at Scouts, now I’ll tell you what we came to this village for and it wasn’t to get something to eat--you’re so smart! It’s because we know where some robbers are camped, and if they’re the ones we think they are we’ll get a reward, I don’t know how much it is. But anyway did you ever hear of girls getting a reward for scouting, I mean doing big things? Stopping trains and finding lost people and saving lives and all that? So now you know why we want to go to the police station--you’re so crazy all you can do is to sit there and giggle! Sweep with brooms, that’s all girls can do.”

She stood up all of a sudden, very brave--you know how they throw their heads back--girls. She stamped her foot at Pee-wee and looked straight in his eyes as if she was trying to scare him and she put her face right close up in front of him.

I said, “Don’t you dare to kiss him.”

“I wouldn’t kiss such a dunce,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what my pal and I did yesterday afternoon. There’s a crazy man named Saul Bagley in this village and he escaped from his home and wandered away three days ago and there was a reward of a hundred dollars offered by his cousins where he lives to anybody that would find him. And we two girls traced him to Dale’s Corners and he was telling everybody there that Charlie Chaplin gave him a million dollars and the Boy Scouts got it away from him. And last night Miss Ella Bagley gave us a check for one hundred dollars. So _there_, Mr. Smarty.”