SEEING THINGS

Just then, I don’t know, I seemed to see a face. I didn’t know where I saw it but it was up above me.

I shouted, “Stop—op—op—this car—rar—I com—mom—mom—and you!”

Pretty soon the car stopped rocking.

“It’s—it’s the bandit,” Pee-wee said; “did you see?”

“You’ve been seeing things,” Westy said.

“I’ll leave it to Roy,” the kid said.

“I saw a face,” I told them; “it was——”

“Shh—look!” Pee-wee whispered; “straight up.”

I looked, and away up through all the trestle work, I could see a head move back into the car at the top. The big axle of the wheel was right between our car and that other one and it hid part of the car. It seemed as if that person up there had been peeking at us and drew in his head quickly so as not to be seen. I saw this much, that he had a cap on.

“Did you see?” I whispered to Westy.

“Sure I did,” he said. “That was no baseball target.”

“Baseball target?” the kid whispered, all excited. “That’s the bandit; now we’ve got him.”

Dorry said, “Don’t look up again; don’t let him think we saw him. He had a cap on. Did you see?”

“I suppose I’ll have to climb up there and shoot him,” Warde Hollister said.

“You sit where you are,” I told him. I knew he was only joking but I saw that was no time for fooling and I was afraid he might spoil everything.

“You could never climb up there,” I said. “Anyway, this is no false alarm. I saw him as plain as day.”

“So did I,” Westy whispered. Hunt and Will said they thought they had seen him too, but they weren’t sure because they had been seeing everything on account of being so dizzy.

Westy said, “Don’t talk loud, remember sound ascends.”

I made believe I was looking all around at the sky and I stole a look up that way again. Just as I did I saw a kind of a movement. I kind of knew that the person away up there in that car was watching us and sticking his head out as much as he dared.

Westy said, “We don’t know whether it’s the bandit or not, but whoever it is, we’ve got him. He’d break his neck jumping from up there. He couldn’t get hold of the trestle on either side of the car. That car must have been down here when we came along. Whoever it is, we’ve got him as sure as if we had handcuffs on him.”

“We’ve foiled him,” the kid whispered. “You said boys never capture bandits and things except in books. Now you see.”

Westy said, “Well, we’ve sure got him, and believe me, that’s a new way to capture a bandit.”

“It shows that scouts are resourceful,” Pee-wee said.

I said, “Sure, they’re so resourceful they capture bandits without knowing it. We don’t even know if he is a bandit.”

“We know we’ve got him. Isn’t that enough?” the kid said.

Jiminies, whoever he was, I could see we had him all right. He was as safe up there as he would have been in a dungeon. Because you can see how it was. The big tall trestle-work that held the axle was only as high as the middle of the wheel. Maybe he could have climbed down that, and maybe he couldn’t. But from the middle of the wheel up to the top the iron-work wasn’t close enough for him to reach from one brace to another. I didn’t see how he could even get out of the car to the nearest girder. If he took a chance, he’d break his neck. I suppose, just like Westy said, he had made for the lowest car and it had gone up with him on account of our weight hanging onto some of the other cars. Nine fellows are heavier than one. Gee whiz, it did seem a funny way to catch any one, but that fellow was caught, sure. I wondered how he felt up there.

“Do you think he’ll take a chance of his life?” one of the fellows asked.

“I bet he’s half crazy up there,” I said.

“Maybe he’ll shoot,” the kid said, kind of scared.

“What good would that do him?” Will said. “He’d have to shoot the whole nine of us, six or seven of us anyway, before the wheel would move. And besides, the axle is in his way.”

“If we all leave here the car will come down,” Warde Hollister said. “He could rock it so as to get the wheel started.”

“It’s rocking a little now,” Westy said.

“I know what I’m going to do,” I told them. “I’m going to find out who he is, if I can.”

“You’re not going to go up and ask him!” the kid said. “You might better use the megaphone. Safety first.”

I said, “I’m going to make believe I’m hunting for something and see if there are any footprints around. If there are and they’re from the direction of the river, that will look bad.”

On the fancy seats were four wooden knobs, two on each seat. I said, “Turn one of those and see if it screws off.”

Warde was sitting at the end of one of the seats and he kept turning the knob till it came off.

I said, “Reach down under your knees—don’t anybody look up—reach down under your knees and wrap your handkerchief tight around that knob, so it will look like a baseball or a tennis ball. Then throw it over here.”

The paint was all gone from those knobs and the wood was all cracked and rotten like all the wood in that old park. I wanted the ball to look white so it would be good and plain to the fellow up there.

In a few seconds Warde and I began throwing it to each other. No one would be suspicious seeing us, that’s sure. Pretty soon I threw it good and hard, like Christy Matthewson, only different, and it went flying out in the direction of the river and dropped. It went in the long grass.

And then is when I had good luck. Because I didn’t have to go five feet from that car before I found something. So you see I didn’t get off the track of our bee-line enough to really call it getting off the track.

I made believe I was hunting for the ball, and in about ten seconds, good night, right there near the car were footprints. I could see them as plain as day. They came from the direction of the river, too. Not in a bee-line the way we had come. But just the same they came from the river, all right.

“I can’t find the pesky old ball,” I shouted. “Why don’t you throw straight when you’re throwing? Come on, let’s go to Little Valley and get some ice cream cones. We should worry.”

“I like this old car,” Westy shouted. “If we leave it maybe the wind will carry it up. Let’s tie it with our rope and come back here and eat our supper in it on the way home. After that it can spin around till it gets dizzy for all we care. Wha’d’ you say?”

I could just hear him saying, “Shhh,” to the other fellows.

That’s Westy Martin all over; he always has his wits about him. I’d carry mine around with me, too, if I had any, only I haven’t got any. Sometimes Pee-wee has good ideas, but he doesn’t carry them with him because he has so much else to carry. But Westy has a dandy brain, I’ll say that for him. I saw right away what he was driving at.

“That’s a crackerjack idea,” I shouted. “Let’s eat our supper here on the way back. We’ll tie the car and then we can loosen it again afterwards. Come on, let’s hurry up. This is a nice lonely place to eat in and nobody anywhere around to bother us.”

“Hurrah!” they all shouted.

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