In a little while the boys were rewarded by the appearance of a pair of headlights coming around the bend in the road.

“You be ready to run up to the house and wake them,” whispered Pee-wee, clutching his ice-pick.

“Suppose they haven’t a ’phone,” said Emerson.

“They have,” said Pee-wee; “a scout has to notice things. Don’t you see the wire branching over that way?”

Emerson thoroughly liked Pee-wee but now he was beginning to have a wholesome respect for his friend’s prowess and resource. Why should the fugitives not come this way? And if they did, had not Pee-wee provided for all contingencies? Had he not even taken note of the ’phone wire stretched from the main lines along the highway to the distant house? And his disinclination to arouse the occupants of that house till necessary suggested both self-reliance and consideration for others. Yes, to be sure, thought Emerson, he was in the hands of a bully little scout.

“I think you’re very clever,” said Emerson.

“Even I’ll get you something to eat afterwards too,” said Pee-wee, “because you know Schmitt’s Bakery on Main Street. By the time we leave here the bakers will be starting to work in the cellar and I know them and I know how to get in the back way and they’ll give us some hot rolls. Do you like hot rolls? Do you like buns? Shhh, here comes the car.”

The car proved to be a roadster and the driver of it was not a gypsy. Pee-wee removed the sign with a few words of explanation and the car went ahead. Another car came, and still another, then a long interval with no cars.

“Gee whiz, I’m hungry too, I’ll say that,” said Pee-wee.

“Don’t say it,” said Emerson.

Pretty soon they were rewarded by the sight of another pair of headlights coming around the bend. As the car approached its dimmed lights suddenly flared up and set two bright columns straight against the warning sign.

Slowly, with its great nickel headlights glaring, the big machine moved forward toward the obstruction. It stopped, then advanced very slowly a few feet more. Then, with heart thumping, Pee-wee beheld something which made his blood run cold—a bright-colored shawl with spangles that shone brilliant in the moonlight and a dusky woman with a bandage around her forehead.

But this was not all. For sitting at the wheel was the most villainous looking man that Pee-wee had ever seen, a man with a mustache of a pirate or a Spanish brigand. There was murder in his slouch hat and the scarf which was knotted about his throat (when taken in conjunction with this hat and his atrocious mustache) suggested a man who would not be satisfied with murder; who would be satisfied with nothing less than torture and massacre. He was Bluebeard and Captain Kidd and all the thieving, kidnaping gypsies of the world rolled into one horrible, appalling, brutal spectacle!

And then Pee-wee realized that he was face to face with the escaping gypsies and the Hunkajunk car. He was terrified, trembling. But he would not shirk his perilous duty now.

“Run to the house,” he whispered to Emerson; “try not to let them see you; crawl on the ground for a ways. Hurry up.”

Scarcely had he said the words when he lowered himself to the ground and, crawling through the tall grass which bordered the road, came around to the back of the car. The pulsating engine helped to drown the slight sound of his cautious movements but his heart beat against his chest like a hammer until he had emerged from his concealment and stood trembling but unseen except by the little red eye of the tail-light. Then, his hand shaking, but his resolve unweakened, he raised his arm and with all the furious vigor of an assassin plunged his deadly ice-pick to the very heart of the innocent cord tire which immediately began breathing its last in a continuous hissing sound while our hero started to run.

“Goodness me we’ve got a flat!” called the merry voice of Pee-wee’s sister, Elsie.

She was nestling in the rear seat between Carmen and Napoleon and on the front seat sat Charlie Chaplin close by the terrible gypsy brigand so as to make room for Martha Washington. Elsie was very sweet in her Joan of Arc costume, far too sweet to have had as an escort the gypsy king whose kindly task of taking the party to their several homes the champion fixer had so effectually baffled.

Sssssssssssss, went the tire.

“We’ve got a puncture,” said Napoleon.

“Sure as you live,” said Charlie Chaplin.

“That was a new tire, too,” said Harry Bensen, the gypsy king, as he got out to inspect the damage.

“Isn’t it exasperating!” said Carmen alias Ruth Collins.

“Now I suppose we’ll simply never get home,” chirped Martha Washington alias Marjorie Dennison. “And I want you all to stop at my house for a cup of coffee, it’s so chilly.”

Slowly, fearfully, the mighty hero retraced his steps. The hurrying Emerson, too, had heard the merry voice of Elsie Harris and then the others and he paused midway between the road and the dark house, and then returned curiously.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Elsie asked of the abashed hero. “And Emmy Skybrow too! You both ought to be home in bed.”

“I—we—we got an—a call over the radio,” Pee-wee stammered. “It was broadcasted that a stolen car with gypsies in it was maybe coming this way so we laid keekie for it and I thought Harry Bensen was a gypsy like the announcer said so that shows anybody can be mistaken so I punched a hole in the tire with an ice-pick because then if it had been stolen—the car—we’d have caught them, wouldn’t we? So I jabbed a hole in it with an ice-pick but anyway I was mistaken. But anyway if you’re going to Marjorie Dennison’s for hot coffee we’ll go with you, and we’ll help you change the tire too, because, gee whiz, we’re good and hungry.”

We need not recount the comments of the several members of the masquerade party, particularly the rather pithy observations of Pee-wee’s sister Elsie who had previously suffered at his hands. It will be quite sufficient to say that Harry Bensen, the gypsy king, was a good sport and a staunch admirer of Pee-wee. They put on a spare tire and then took the unhappy heroes into the car and made good speed for the Dennison place in East Bridgeboro.

But in fact Pee-wee was not unhappy, only Emerson was unhappy. For Pee-wee was, as usual, triumphant. He sat on the front seat wedged in between Harry Bensen, the gypsy, and Martha Washington. Charlie Chaplin sat upon the top of the door to make room for him.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d fix it for you?” Pee-wee demanded of Emerson who squatted unobtrusively on the floor in back. “Didn’t I say I’d get you some eats? Now you’re going to have hot coffee and cake maybe and everything. Didn’t I say I’d fix it for you? Gee whiz, if a scout says he’ll do a thing he does it.”

“Even if he has to use an ice-pick,” said Harry Bensen, the gypsy king.

“I’d like to be a scout,” said Ruth Collins.

“Gee, it’s great being a scout,” said Pee-wee.

“It’s not so great being a scout’s sister,” said Joan of Arc.

“Joan of Arc carried a sword,” said Harry Bensen, nudging Pee-wee, “and a scout carries an ice-pick. I don’t believe you could use an ice-pick with such deadly skill.”

“The way I feel now I would like to use an axe with deadly skill if I had one,” said Elsie.

“What a bloodthirsty family,” laughed Harry Bensen.

“Are you hungry?” Pee-wee asked, looking around and peering down at the silent Emerson. “Now you’re going up to Dennison’s and I fixed it for you and you’re going to have eats just like you wanted, so gee whiz, you can’t say I’m not a fixer.”

“Fixer is right,” laughed Harry Bensen.