rd
each other so that they would stand up good and solid. Then we told him
to sit down, because we didn't want him standing and reaching up to fix
the sheet.

"I'll go up," I said.

When I got up on the roof, Pee-wee and I hooked the sheet to the rope
all the way across and tied it to the sticks at the bottom, so it
wouldn't blow. Then we dangled the end of rope down past the window just
below, and the fellows tied the movie apparatus to it, and we hauled it
up. There was a kind of a tank lying flat on the roof and fastened
tight, and we stood the apparatus close against that, and kept close to
it ourselves to keep from slipping and falling off. Jiminies, I've heard
of tramps riding on the tops of cars like that, but believe me, I
wouldn't want to be on the top of one while it was going.

With my little finger I printed the word STOP in good big black letters
on the smoked glass.

"Listen," Pee-wee said; "shh; do you hear a train?"

I listened. "I guess it's just the fellows down in the car," I said.
"Have you got matches?"

"I've got four pockets full of them," he said. Even then I had to laugh.
A scout is thorough.

"Listen," he said; "I think it's a train."

Away off I could hear a rattling sound, very low and quick--_tkd_,
_tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_, _tkd_; then all of a sudden a
long, shrill whistle. And I could hear it again, very low, echoing from
the mountains.

"_She's coming!_" Connie shouted up.

"We should worry," I hollered down.

But just the same my hand trembled as I put the piece of glass into the
apparatus, and held it there in place.

There wasn't any sign of light anywhere, the cloth stayed as dark as
pitch.

"What's the matter?" Pee-wee asked, all breathless.

"It doesn't work," I said. I could hardly speak, and cold shudders were
going all through me.

Away far off, there came a big patch of light on one of the mountains,
so that we could even see the trees off there. It was from the headlight
of a locomotive that we couldn't see yet. I guess it was coming around
the mountain.

"All right?" Westy called up out of the window.

"It doesn't work, Westy," I said.

I could hardly speak, my throat felt so queer, sort of.

CHAPTER XXVII

"POTS"

"Did you take the cap off?" Westy called up. Thoughtful little Westy!

"G--o--o--d night," I said; "I never took the cap off the lens
cylinder."

"Maybe that was the reason," Pee-wee said, in that innocent way