join?" he added.

They paused on the frontier of Joe's domain in the rear of the big bank
building which fronted on Main Street. Here was the makeshift sidewalk
of barrel staves whence the alley derived its name. "You have to be,
kind of, you have to be a sort of a--kind of wild and reckless to join
the scouts," Pee-wee pleaded. "Maybe you're kind of scared on account
of thinking that you have to be civilized, but you don't; you don't
even eat off plates," he added with sudden inspiration. "We cook
potatoes just like tramps do, right out in the woods; we hold them on
sticks over the fire. So now will you join? If you will you'll be
elected patrol leader because there's only one to vote for you and I'm
the one and I'm a majority. See? So if you come in right now you'll
be sure to have a majority and I'll buy some Eskimo pies, too."

"Der yez swipe de pertaters?" Joe asked.

"We don't exactly kind of what you would call swipe them," Pee-wee was
forced to confess. "But we get them in ways that are just as good.
They taste just as good as if they were swiped, honest they do," he
hastened to add. "So will you come down by the river with me? That
old railroad car down there is our meeting place and it's got a stove
in it and everything and there won't be any one there to-day except
just you and me and we'll have an election and I'll vote for you and
you can vote for yourself and so you'll be sure to be elected patrol
leader. And after that I'll show you what you have to do and most of
it is eating and things like that. So will you say yes?"

Keekie Joe was not to be lured by promises of "eats," though he was
curious about the old railroad car. His answer to Pee-wee was