wild and adventurous, show your mettle."

I said, "Didn't you see metal enough when my official staff spilled the
saucepan and the coffee-pot and things?"

The man just said, "That is my offer. Cake, pie and the roof. Or
nothing. You are the leader. What do you say?"

"Say yes," Pee-wee whispered to me.

Jiminies, that kid would climb over the Woolworth Building for a piece
of pie.

CHAPTER VII

FAMINE

I said, "All right, we accept the offer."

"Just sit around and make yourselves at home," the man said. Then he
went around the side of the house.

Jiminies, we didn't know what to make of that man. He was nice and
sociable, and he seemed to be always trying not to laugh, and everybody
knows that fat people are good-natured. And he seemed kind of to like
us, too. Then why didn't he let us go through his house? That was what
_I_ wanted to know. If he had just been grouchy and ordered us off his
place we wouldn't have been so surprised. But if he liked us well enough
to go to some trouble on account of us, then why wouldn't he let us just
go through his house?

I said, "We should worry. It won't be the first roof I climbed over.
Only I don't understand it, that's all."

"It's a mystery," Pee-wee said. "Maybe he's got some kind of a plot.
Hey?"

"Maybe he just wants to see if we can make good," Westy said.

Hunt said, "We'll give him a demonstration, all right."

"Maybe he meditates treachery," the kid said. I guess he got those words
out of the movies.

"Well," I said, "we're here because we're here and we're going to stay
here and see it through."

Pretty soon the plot grew thicker. We could hear that man talking over
the telephone in the house. He was saying, "_Yes, get here as soon as
you can; a big haul_."

"We're going to get hauled in," Pee-wee said. "He's calling up the
police. What shall we do?" He looked frightened.

I said, "Stay right here; we're not quitters."

Then we could hear the man saying more. Gee williger, it had me
guessing. He said, "Yes--yes. Oh, we could release them in a couple of
months."

"Did you hear what he said?" Pee-wee whispered. "They'll release us in a
couple of months. Come on, let's get out of here. What do you think it
means?"

I said, "I don't know what it means. This man has me guessing. But we
haven't done anything wrong. This is the Bee-line hike. Are we going to
see it through or not?"

"We are!" they all said.

"All right," I said; "over t