It happened at that very minute that Pee-wee, trotting breathlessly along through the woods, trying to run and talk at the same time, was telling Roy and Connie Bennett how he had recovered those dreadful tickets by the application of his wonderful “scout resource.”

“Gee whiz, believe me, he never could have got ’em, because he doesn’t know any scout tricks,” he panted. “But anyway I showed him how you can get gum out of trees, and I had a good time with him anyway and he treated me fine (interval of panting) and anyway, I’m sorry he didn’t come along. I—I—I’m sorry because I l-l-like (more panting) him.”

“He’d have dropped out anyway and got lost in the woods, kid,” said Connie. “I wouldn’t take him unless he brought his go-cart.”

“I—jus—jus—just the s-s-same I like——” Pee-wee panted.

“Listen, there’s Westy shouting,” said Roy.

They paused to listen, then tramped on again, looking sharply to the right and left as they made their way in a bee-line through the dark woods.

The match Emerson had lighted reminded him of something; and the thought having occurred to him, he did not hesitate. He removed his wallet to his trousers pocket, slipped off his neat jacket and ignited the lining of it with another match. It stubbornly refused to burn, so he took the precious Erie time-table out of his wallet and ignited that.

With this torch he was enabled to encourage the jacket to burn more hopefully. He swung it to and fro to fan the doubtful blaze and soon it was a mass of flame. For a brief moment it showed the boy in bold relief, standing there on the narrow wall of masonry surrounded by the night. His white pique shirt with starched cuffs attached gave him an appearance of polite negligee which did not ill become him.

He tucked his neat four-in-hand scarf into his shirt front to prevent it from catching fire, and bent far forward to keep the spreading flame well away from him. Then he threw the blazing jacket into the enclosure. It dropped where he intended it to, on the end of the timber which slanted up out of the water.

The interior of the walled-in hole was instantly illuminated. Emerson saw that the water reached to the very edges; there was no telling how deep it might be nor what was beneath it. Odds and ends of debris floated in it; twigs, a soggy, half-recognizable cap, a bobbing baseball. Evidently these treasures had not beguiled their owners to venture into that perilous place.

One thing more he saw in the fitful light. Close to the little, hobbly island was a dab of red and near it something of another color, foreign to its immediate surroundings. He thought it was the sleeve of a garment. Something that might be a hand was visible at the end of it. But the position was unnatural for an arm; there was something appalling in the way it lay. Then the jacket, reduced to a charred mass with a few unburned shreds, tumbled off the board into the water and all was darkness.

Emerson listened but there was no sound save the sizzling of the last burning remnant as it was swallowed in the black water.