Providence had made him its guardian, and he would take it back again
and say, (or words to this effect) "Here is your super six Hunkajunk
car, Mr. Bartlett; they tried to steal it but I _foiled_ them! I was
disguised as a buffalo robe."

There was only one difficulty in the way of this heroic course and that
was that he could not run the car. Never again would he touch one of
those frightful nickel things on the instrument board. So, wishing to
handle this harrowing situation alone, with true scout prowess and
resource, he kicked around among the ruins of that tyrannous and fallen
empire, and tried to devise some plan.

Suddenly he heard a sound near him. He paused in the darkness, his scout
heel upon a poor, defenseless crumpled spelling book. Thus he stood in
mingled triumph and agitation, his heart beating fast, every nerve on
edge.

"Who--who's there?" he said.

He moved again, and was startled as his foot slipped off the charred
timber on which he was walking. The brisk autumn wind was playing havoc
among the debris, blowing damp pages over faster than anyone could turn
them. It played among a burned chest of old examination papers.
scattering them like dried leaves. Correct or incorrect, they were all
the same now. Pee-wee liked this roving, unruly wind, having its own way
in that dominion of restriction. He liked its gay disregard of all this
solemn claptrap.

But now he heard clearly the sound of footsteps among the ruins,
footsteps picking their way as it seemed to him, through the uncertain