Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels Part 21

"Never mind what for. Get a piece of gla.s.s," I hollered. "Pick out two long sticks--hurry up."

It didn't take us long to decide just how we'd do.

"Two _long_ ones," I said; "don't be listening for trains."

Crash went a window. "I've got a good piece," Pee-wee yelled.

"All right, blacken it with the movie lamp," I told him.

Oh, boy, we were some busy crew. The wood that had been nailed up under the car in Brewster's Centre was in long strips, and we hauled a couple of the longest ones out double quick. It wasn't exactly my idea, what we did; it was all of our ideas, I guess. We planned it out while we were hustling.

One of those long strips we stuck out of the window and then held it up outside. One end of it was inside the car, resting on the seat, and the other end pointed up as straight as we could hold it outside. It reached up past the roof. Two of us held it that way, while two others did the same thing with another one through the window just opposite. So you see those two long strips stuck up, one on either side of the roof. They didn't stand up straight on account of sticking down through the windows, but they slanted away from each other up above. It took four of us to hold them that way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPRAWLING RIGHT ACROSS THAT SHEET WAS THE WORD _STOP_.

_Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels._ _Page 150_]

While we were doing that, Pee-wee had the little movie lamp turned up so it smoked and he held the piece of gla.s.s over it until it was all black with soot. Pee-wee was all black with soot, too. A scout is thorough. In two minutes more, I guess, he would have been disguised as a negro.

"Turn it down," I said; "that's enough. Are you game to climb up on the car? Get the sheet and the rope, quick."

Pee-wee was game for anything. You never saw him back down, did you? Not even--but never mind. That's a thing of the past. In five seconds that little monkey was up on top of the car with the screen cloth and the rope that we always used to hang it from. I called up out of the window for him to look out.

"I don't see any trains," he shouted down.

"I mean look out for yourself," I said. "Tie the rope across from one stick to the other as high as you can reach," Wig shouted; "and be careful when you stand up."

"That's nothing," Pee-wee shouted.

In less than half a minute the sticks stood up all right without being held, and we knew that they were tied together and bent enough toward each other so that they would stand up good and solid. Then we told him to sit down, because we didn't want him standing and reaching up to fix the sheet.

"I'll go up," I said.

When I got up on the roof, Pee-wee and I hooked the sheet to the rope all the way across and tied it to the sticks at the bottom, so it wouldn't blow. Then we dangled the end of rope down past the window just below, and the fellows tied the movie apparatus to it, and we hauled it up. There was a kind of a tank lying flat on the roof and fastened tight, and we stood the apparatus close against that, and kept close to it ourselves to keep from slipping and falling off. Jiminies, I've heard of tramps riding on the tops of cars like that, but believe me, I wouldn't want to be on the top of one while it was going.

With my little finger I printed the word STOP in good big black letters on the smoked gla.s.s.

"Listen," Pee-wee said; "shh; do you hear a train?"

I listened. "I guess it's just the fellows down in the car," I said.

"Have you got matches?"

"I've got four pockets full of them," he said. Even then I had to laugh.

A scout is thorough.

"Listen," he said; "I think it's a train."

Away off I could hear a rattling sound, very low and quick--_tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_; then all of a sudden a long, shrill whistle. And I could hear it again, very low, echoing from the mountains.

"_She's coming!_" Connie shouted up.

"We should worry," I hollered down.

But just the same my hand trembled as I put the piece of gla.s.s into the apparatus, and held it there in place.

There wasn't any sign of light anywhere, the cloth stayed as dark as pitch.

"What's the matter?" Pee-wee asked, all breathless.

"It doesn't work," I said. I could hardly speak, and cold shudders were going all through me.

Away far off, there came a big patch of light on one of the mountains, so that we could even see the trees off there. It was from the headlight of a locomotive that we couldn't see yet. I guess it was coming around the mountain.

"All right?" Westy called up out of the window.

"It doesn't work, Westy," I said.

I could hardly speak, my throat felt so queer, sort of.

CHAPTER XXVII

"POTS"

"Did you take the cap off?" Westy called up. Thoughtful little Westy!

"G--o--o--d night," I said; "I never took the cap off the lens cylinder."

"Maybe that was the reason," Pee-wee said, in that innocent way of his.

"It's just possible," I said.

I took off the cap and, oh, _Christopher Columbus_, wasn't I happy!

Sprawling right across that sheet was the word STOP in good big letters.

Believe me, that was my favorite word. STOP. It showed far enough in both directions for an engineer to see it in time to come to a full stop.

"Will they see it?" Pee-wee asked me, all excited.

"If the engineer isn't dead, he'll see it," I told him.

"Maybe we ought to have said _please_, hey? A scout is supposed to be polite," he said. I just had to sit back and laugh, right there on the roof of that car. Cracky, but that kid is a scream.

One funny thing was that from the train the word would show wrong side around. It would show the right way from one direction and the wrong way from the other direction.

"It will read POTS," I said.