Читать книгу Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 10

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It was all right laughing at Pee-wee, but one thing sure, that trailer was along some road somewhere and we didn’t know where it was. Because, gee whiz, we had been on about forty-’leven country roads, I guess. That’s the way it is on an endurance run, that’s the way Harry wanted it to be. He wanted to prove what the Hunkerjunk would do.

I bet if I saw a map of the way we went that night in the Berkshires it would look like a Chinese puzzle. We had to hand it to Pee-wee for being the first to think about tracing our way back by the design on the tires.

That shows how important a cruller is because if Pee-wee wasn’t always thinking so much about crullers maybe he wouldn’t have thought about tracing our way back like that, but, anyway, a balloon tire reminds me of a doughnut more than it does of a cruller, but balloon tires remind me of Pee-wee too on account of him always going up in the air, but, anyway, I like pie better than crullers and doughnuts both.

“Do you want me to lead the way back?” Pee-wee asked us. “I’ll walk in front of the car, hey?”

“Sure, and watch the crullers,” I said.

So we turned the car around and went very slow and Pee-wee walked ahead like a scout leading the way across the prairie. He kept just about where the headlights shone brightest on the road. Of course he didn’t have to bother watching much except when we came near to a cross-road. Then he had to be careful to watch where the doughnut trail led. But we were willing to trust to him because he knows all about crullers.

Pretty soon we saw how we had been driving lickety-split in and out of every road we had come to.

“Some crazy drive we were having,” I said.

Brent said, “My idea was that if we turned into every road we came to we wouldn’t go too far in any one direction. We’d just pile up mileage.”

“We’ve got quite a heap of it since we started,”

I said. “Over three hundred miles. We’ve got thirty thousand to do without stopping the engine. You’d better be careful you don’t stall going as slow as this. Anyway, one good thing, I don’t think there are many cars along these roads at night. They won’t get bumped into.”

“If they do they’ll know it,” Brent said.

“I don’t think anything but a hay wagon would be likely to bump into them around here,” I said.

It was good Pee-wee had a way of retracing our way, because Brent didn’t seem to remember any of the cross-roads.

I said, “There’s a house; do you remember it?” He said, “It wasn’t there before. Maybe it’s a happy home and doesn’t stay put.”

“You’re some scout,” I told him.

Pee-wee kind of stopped at a cross-road that led into a woods, then he started down that way. He called to us that the marks were clear.

“It’s going to be a cinch,” I said.

Pretty soon another road crossed that and it was easy for him to follow the right one. He was using his flashlight and I guess he reminded himself of Daniel Boone or Buffalo Bill. After a while we came up onto a pretty good road and we thought we remembered it. There was a house and we sort of remembered that.

Pee-wee called, “We’re on the right track, because I remember the smell like a barnyard.”

I said, “Don’t trust to the smell but follow the crullers.”

I guess we went a couple of miles more and into another road, then good night—we were foiled! There was a private roadway out from a house, and on that roadway were marks just like the marks made by our own tires. Maybe the people in that house had a new Hunkerjunk. Anyway, they had the same kind of tires that we had. Those marks made a trail out of the private roadway and along the road the same way we were going. That was all right only pretty soon there was another cross-road and one of those cruller trails went straight along and the other went up the side road.

“What’ll we do now?” Pee-wee said.

“I guess we’d better have a meeting of the board of directors,” Brent told him. “The plot seems to be growing thicker. I didn’t suppose there was any one in Massachusetts fool enough to buy a Hunkerjunk. Maybe it’s some other car carrying the famous Buster Balloon Tires. I don’t know which way to go now. Shall we say Eenie, meenie, miney, mo?”

“Then we’re just as likely to go wrong as right,” Pee-wee shouted.

Brent said, “You’re mistaken, Scout Harris. You mean we’re just as likely to go right as wrong. Deny it if you dare.”

“There are too many crullers even for Pee-wee,” I said.

Believe me, that was saying something.