BANDITS AND THINGS

I said, “Grab hold of this rope, Detective Harris, if you want to get across the river.”

So that’s the way we got across, going straight west, even while the tide was running out good and strong. Mr. Pinchem rowed over with one end of the rope, and the tide carried him about fifty yards downstream before he made the other shore. Then he got out and dragged the boat back upstream and tied the rope to the tree just where we told him to.

We had to make two trips across, but it was easy keeping our course because all we had to do was to keep hold of the rope and work the boat along with our hands.

I guess those men didn’t think we could be much help to them; anyway they didn’t hire Pee-wee to foil the bandit the way men do in stories. I’d like to see that kid capturing a bandit. Judging by the way he treats ice cream cones there wouldn’t be much left of the bandit. I’m not crazy about bandits, anyway, but some fellows are. Anyway, I’d like a blue one better than a black one because that’s my patrol color.

But, anyway, this is the way those men thought it was. Northvale is about three or four miles above Bridgeboro. It’s right on the river and there’s a boat club up there. So when they found that boat in the marshes down near Bridgeboro I guess they thought that fellow had left the boat and maybe was hiding somewhere around there. Because, anyway, it would be pretty hard for him to get through the marshes to the railroad track, that’s sure.

Now after those men left us they started rowing back up the river and they didn’t get along very fast on account of the tide being against them. Gee whiz, I’d kind of like to be a detective if I was a man, but I wouldn’t want to be a truant officer.

So now our bee-line hike was about half over and we had traveled in a pretty straight line. I’m not saying that we didn’t go even a yard to the right or left, because, gee, that would be impossible, but I bet we went in a pretty straight line. We didn’t vary our course any just to save trouble, that’s sure.

Now from the river there is open country till you get to Little Valley. The only thing that stands in the way is Riverview Park. That used to be an amusement park. They closed it up during the war because they needed the horses on the merry-go-round for ambulances in France; that’s what Harry Donnelle said. He lives in Little Valley.

Anyway, they never opened that park again. Gee whiz, I didn’t care much because we’re always up at Temple Camp in the summer. All you could do there was spend money. You can have more fun for nothing.

So the only trouble we would have between the river and Little Valley was the board fence around that old park, and you don’t call a board fence an obstacle, I hope.

Our young hero couldn’t get that bandit out of his mind. He said, “I bet he’s a pretty desperate robber, hey? To fire two shots.”

“Sure,” Westy said, “if he had only fired one it wouldn’t have been so bad. And to get away with seven hundred dollars, too.”

“If it had been only three or four hundred dollars I wouldn’t say anything,” I said. “But seven hundred is too much.”

“It’s grand larceny,” the kid said.

“I don’t call it so very grand,” I told him. “If you think it’s grand to steal seven hundred dollars, you’ve got some funny ideas. I suppose if a man stole about ten thousand dollars you’d call that magnificent larceny.”

“You’re crazy,” Pee-wee shouted. “Grand larceny is a kind of a crime.”

I said, “Well, I’m a scout, and I don’t call larceny grand.”

“It’s a crime,” Pee-wee shouted, “and he can get a long sentence for it.”

“He ought to get a whole paragraph for a crime like that,” I told him.

“Do you think maybe we’ll run into him?” the kid wanted to know.

“Not if we see him first,” I said. “I guess a man who is guilty of wayhigh robbery wouldn’t hang around here.”

“Sometimes scouts catch fugitives,” Pee-wee said.

“More often they catch the dickens,” Hunt said. “Come on, forget it.”

“Sure,” I said; “keep in a bee-line and you’ll always go straight.”

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