ll to the poorhouse. Ever hear
that song? What's that you've got there, a soldier? Watcher doing with
him? Lucky kid, I'd like to be a soldier."

"What were you, a slacker?" Pee-wee shouted.

This was not the kind of retort that Deadwood Gamely was accustomed to
hearing and he gave a quick look at the small stranger in khaki who sat
behind the counter like a judge on the bench staring straight at him.

"Don't get him riled," Pepsy whispered. "He likes to get me riled so's
just to make me feel silly; it's--it's Deadwood Gamely. He's always
togged out swell like that," she added fearfully.

"The only thing that's swell about him is his head," said Pee-wee in his
loudest voice. "Don't you be scared of him, I'm here."

"What's that?" said the young man in a tone intended to be darkly
menacing.

"You'd better put your hat on the top of your head or it'll blow off,"
said Pee-wee. "I said that I'm here. Let's hear you deny it. If I was a
crow I might be afraid of you."

Slightly taken aback by his ready retorts, the young man could only say,
"If you were a crow, hey?" He stepped a little closer to the counter but
the ominous advance did not alarm Pee-wee in the least. He sat behind
his card-strewn counter holding the stencil brush like a sort of weapon
ready to besmear that face of sneering assurance if its owner ventured
too near.

"So I'm a scarecrow, eh?" Mr. Gamely said with a side glance at Pepsy.
He was not going to have her witness his discomfiture at the hands of
this glib little stranger. Moreover, a slur at his personal splendor was
a very grave matter and not to be overlooked.

"I don't like fresh kids," said Mr. Deadwood Gamely, advancing with an
air of veiled menace.

"Sometimes they get so fresh they have to be salted a little. Don't you
think you'd better take that back?"

Pepsy waited, fearful, breathless.

"Sure I will," said Pee-wee; "the next scarecrow I meet I'll apologize
to him."

Deadwood Gamely paused. His usual procedure in an affair of this kind
would have been to advance quickly, ruffle his victim's hair in a
goading kind of swaggerish good humor and send him sprawling. He would
not really have hurt a youngster like Pee-wee but he would have made him
look and feel ridiculous.

But a glance at Pee-wee's gummy stencil brush reminded Mr. Gamely that
discretion was the better part of valor. A dexterous dab or two of that
would have put an end to all his glory. Pee-wee left no doubt abou