"What will you do if they don't take up the car for a week?" he asked.
"They might look inside of it, too; or they might change their minds
about taking it."
He was anxious for himself for he contemplated with terror his
threatened imprisonment, but he could not help being concerned also for
this miserable creature and he wondered what would happen if they both
remained in the car for several days more, with nothing to eat. Then,
surely, the man would be compelled to put a little faith in him and let
him go out in search of food. He wondered what he should do in that
case--what he ought to do; but that, he realized, was borrowing trouble.
Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster, had once said that it is _always bad to
play false_. Well, then, would it be bad to play false with an escaped
felon--to double-cross him? Pee-wee did not know.
His companion interrupted his train of thought "They don' look inside o'
way-billed empties--not much," he said, "an' they don't let 'em stan' so
long, nuther. I got bad luck, I did, from doin' my trick on a Friday.
They'll be 'long pretty quick, though. They reckisitioned all th' empty
grain cars fer Buff'lo. I'm lookin' ter hear th' whistle any minute, I
am, an' I got a pal waitin' fer me in the yards up ter Buff'lo, wid the
duds. When I get there 'n' get me clo's changed, mebbe I'll leave ye
come back if me pal 'n' me thinks ye kin be trusted."
"I can be trusted now just as much as I could be trusted then," said
Pee-wee, greatly disturbed at the thought of this enforced journey;
"and how could I get back? I guess maybe you don't know anything about
scouts--maybe they weren't started when you were---- Anyway, a scout can
be trusted.
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