THE HERO

When Will Dawson spoke his voice was hoarse. “Let’s go—we’ve got to go and look in,” he said.

Westy just gulped. He said, “Wait a second—listen.”

“It’s awful,” Ralph Warner said. “We—we can’t just stand here. What shall we do?”

Pee-wee was as white as snow. He just stood there gulping.

“We’ll—we’ll have—to—tell his—his mother,” one of the fellows said.

Just then, good night, you’ll hardly believe it when I tell you. Out came one of those old boards just as if some one was kicking it, and there was Warde Hollister dragging out the poor limp black man by the neck. The man’s arms were flopping about this way and that and Warde threw him down flat on the ground. Then he made his hands into two cups and slapped them together.

“Just one more shot to finish him,” he said. It sounded just exactly like a pistol.

“There he is,” Warde said; “and he’ll never frighten good little boy scouts again. Nobody will ever get another prize for hitting him in the eye with a baseball. His glorious career as a target is over. Step up, lads, and take a look at him.”

Oh, boy, I guess we never felt so silly in our lives. Poor bandit, he was just one of those figures that sit in a chair and are pelted with baseballs, three shots for a dime. “Every time you hit the nigger!” That’s what the man used to call. When some one hit him a good hard crack he’d topple off the seat and then the man would give you a kewpie doll or maybe an ash-tray. The poor old wooden “nigger” had been packed away and all we had seen was his black face sticking up above some old boxes.

I said to Warde, laughing good and hard, “You knew it all the time, didn’t you?”

He just said, “A scout is observant. Do I get the Gold Cross?”

Westy said, “I don’t think you get the Gold Cross, but we ought to get leather medals, I know that. We’re a fine outfit of scouts not to know an old ‘hit-the-nigger’ target from a bandit.”

Warde just kicked the poor old black man. I guess the black man didn’t care, because he was used to being pelted in the face. I wouldn’t want that job.

Then Warde said, “Scout Harris is to blame for this horrible murder. Did you ever hear of mental suggestion?” Gee, that fellow’s smart.

“Is that what you killed him with?” I said.

He said, “If you’re hunting for a thing, everything looks like that thing. Harris had bandits on his brain, so one look at this thing was enough for you fellows.”

“If you’re looking for—for—a piece of pie,” Pee-wee piped up, “will everything be pie?”

“Posilutely,” I said. “Just the same as when you’re in Hamburg everything looks like ham. It’s the same only different. Just the same as all the buildings in Paris are made of plaster of paris. Just the same as the raving Ravens are afraid of wooden dummies. What’s the answer?”

“Answer to what?” he shouted.

“Anything,” I said. “It depends on what the question is. Warde Hollister is a better scout than any of us. Deny it if you dare, quoth I. He has performed the most heroic act since Artie Van Arlen, patrol leader of the Ravens, killed a couple of hours waiting for a train for Temple Camp. They don’t care what they kill, those scouts.”

We put the baseball target back where he belonged and I guess he’s dead yet for all I know. He faced a good many bee-lines, that’s one sure thing. Anyway, we should bother about him because we had our own bee-line hike to finish, only the worst was yet to come.

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