t three times. Now, tell me if you told your
father about seeing that man getting dead."

"Yes, and he said I'm always seeing things; everybody says that. Maybe
I'll get dead when it rains."

"Don't you believe it," Pee-wee said; "Licorice Stick's been telling you
that. Didn't you say you were going to be a giant first?"

"You're not a giant."

Alas, Pee-wee knew this only too well. He knew too that it would be
quite impossible to get anything in the way of a connected narrative
out of this stern little autocrat. Whether he had actually been "seeing
things" or had only seen something in his queer little inner life, who
should say? Evidently no one took him very seriously. And this fact did
not seem to trouble him at all. Removing the compass cord from about his
neck, Pee-wee advanced to proffer his second gift to the Bungel family.
Little did that stiff, serious little figure know that the much-needed
money which Mrs. Bungel had been wise enough to take from her husband,
had come from the same source. Pee-wee searched in vain for any sign of
hands in those enveloping blankets. There were no hands, there seemed to
be no body even; just two eyes looking straight ahead as if their owner
were not going to assist at all in the transfer of the little gift. So
Pee-wee laid the compass on the porch rail.

"There you are," he said; "that needle always points to the north."

The two severe eyes stared down at the compass on the rail but their
owner made no attempt to reach it as Pee-wee started off. If Pee-wee had
not been so worried and preoccupied he would have thought that he had
never seen anything so absurdly amusing in all his life.

"Come back and say good-by," the little voice commanded.

Pee-wee returned and stood in the exact spot where he had stood before
and said, "Good-by." Although the little pale face did not turn the
fraction of an inch, the staring eyes followed Pee-wee as he went along
the road.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE TRAMPLED TRAIL

Pee-wee felt as if he were emerging from some enchanted spot in the
"Arabian Nights," abounding with giants and men "getting dead." He had
no more belief in what this imperious little imp had told him than he
had in the predictions of Licorice Stick, or the homely superstitions of
Pepsy.

Indeed, if he had thought seriously of these erratic snapshot bits of
information about figures wriggling in the dark and "getting dead" he
would never have