rted highway came at
Pee-wee's breathless summons and gazed down silently but would not touch
the figure with outstretched arm and opened hand that seemed to say,
"Step in, you're welcome, here I am."

So they called the coroner and the body of Deadwood Gamely was borne
away and it was soon known that he had died from injuries received in
falling down the embankment which he was scrambling up after setting
fire to one of the supports of the old bridge.

He had not done this horrible thing willfully, at least not for money to
spend. That very day a warrant was issued for his arrest in Baxter City
for embezzlement of funds which he had stolen from the bank in which he
had been employed. But the angel of death had traveled faster than the
law.

That the contractors, or one of them, who wished to benefit the county
with a modern bridge had offered Gamely pay to do this dreadful deed of
arson seemed certain. But it seemed equally certain that the wretched
boy had balked at this frightful enterprise, putting it off from day to
day, until discovery and arrest for his other crime stared him in the
face. He had waited till the very night before the day on which his
petty thefts would be revealed. Then in frantic desperation he had taken
this only means of acquiring a sum of money quickly. No one could say
this for a certainty.

But in a story where we have witnessed so many good turns may we not
dismiss poor Deadwood Gamely and his tragic end from our thoughts with
the hope, nay, even the confidence, that his second crime was not a deed
of willing choice? There was more money misappropriated by Tom, Dick
and Harry, before the new steel bridge was up than ever poor Deadwood
Gamely, with his silly clothes and hat, would have dared to steal. And
so the tax rate went up and Commissioner Somebody--or--other got a new
automobile and County Engineer Grabson built a big house and so on, and
so on, and so on.

But before the new million-dollar bridge was finished the Pepsy Roadside
Rest was flourishing as the only real "monolopy" in Everdoze.

CHAPTER XXXV

EXIT

So it befell that the big black wagon belonging to the brick orphan home
came and turned around and went back again. It got in the way of all
the automobiles that were headed for The Home of Fresh Doughnuts (a new
sign) and was a nuisance generally. The men who drove it didn't buy so
much as a gumdrop.

But what cared the partners?