ne of
Licorice Stick's prescriptions) to insure good luck for the morrow,
Pee-wee was dangling his legs from the counter eating a doughnut.

What concerned him now was this mystery of the speeding cyclists. That
was the big thing in his young life. He believed them to be fugitives.
Their reckless speed, and the fact that they used no headlights, gave
color to this delightful supposition. Little had they thought that this
diminutive scout, unseen in the darkness, had read that message in the
Morse Code with perfect ease. Hide Kelly's Barn. What did that mean?

If Pee-wee had liked Beriah Bungel, the Everdoze constable, he would
have gone to him with this information. But he disliked Beriah Bungel
with true scout thoroughness; he knew him to be officious, and swelling
with self-importance and he was not going to put business in such a
creature's way.

But the next morning something happened which showed Scout Harris in a
new light. Going to the post office early in the morning, he saw a sign
posted on the bulletin board and he read it with lively interest.

$250.00 REWARD

for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the
thieves who stole two motorcycles from the yard of Chandler's
Motorcycle Repair Shop in Baxter City.

The machines are Indian models bearing license plates 2570
and 92632. Both machines are comparatively new.

Communicate with Austin Sawyer,
County prosecutor, County of Borden, Baxter City.

This notice had evidently been brought down by the mail driver early in
the morning and several distinguished citizens of Everdoze were gathered
about commenting on it. It seemed certain that none of the Everdoze
dozers had heard the motorcycles and surely no one in the village would
have been any the wiser for seeing those quick, tiny flashes, which told
so much to the scout.

"I heerd somethin' but 'twan't no motorcycles," said Nathaniel Knapp;
"'twas a auto or I'm crazy."

Then spoke Beriah Bungel, sticking his thumbs into his suspenders so
that his rusty-colored coat flapped open showing his imposing badge,
"They wouldn' never come this way, they wouldn', when they got th'
highway ter go on. They hit inter th' highway from Barter, that's what
they done. Them fellers hez con-federates waitin' across th' state
line with Noo York license plates. They made th' line last night; them
fellers gits as fur as they kin on the first go