ly," I said; "let us hear the worst."

"Shhh, listen!" he said. "Somebody's being killed."

"How tragic!" Wig said.

"It isn't tragic at all," Pee-wee said; "listen----it's true."

"Have it your own way," I told him.

"In that little house," he whispered, all the while going back on
tiptoe; "hark--shh."

We all followed him back, giggling, because we had been through things
like this before with our boy hero. Believe me, Dauntless Dan of the
Dauntless Dan Series has nothing on Scout Harris. In front of the little
shack we all stood stark still, listening.

"Do you hear it?" Pee-wee whispered. "It's a bitter struggle."

The first sound that _I_ noticed was a sound as if a chair was falling
over. Then I heard a man's voice say, "I'll choke you till you tell me.
Are you ready to speak?" Then another voice said, "Never!"

Pee-wee said, "Shh, what did I tell you?"

We were all pretty interested by that time. Pretty soon a kind of a
high, squeaky voice said, "Do you think I'm afraid of you--you
big----" Then it seemed as if the voice was just kind of choked off,
because there were stifled cries, sort of, and all the while a gruff
voice saying, "Are you ready to take that back? This is your last
chance--I'll teach you----" And all the while that other voice kept
crying and yelling, and it seemed just as if the person must be
struggling.

"It's a child," Westy said, all excited.

"He's strangling it to death," Pee-wee whispered, so scared and excited,
that his voice was hoarse. And just then we could hear a long kind of a
gurgle and a man's voice saying, "I'll teach you! I'll teach you!" And
then the two voices seemed to be mixed up together.

"Wait here," Pee-wee said, and off he started, pell-mell for the tent
where there was a light inside.

In ten seconds he was back with a couple of men, and shouting, "_In that
shack! In that shack! A man is murdering somebody in that shack! Hurry
up!_"

By that time we were all pretty scared, I guess. The two men vaulted up
on to the platform and pushed the door open and we stood outside looking
up over the edge of the platform. All of a sudden Westy said,
"_What--do--you--know----_"

That was all he could say. He just vaulted up himself with the rest of
us after him. And there we all stood in the doorway, only Pee-wee pushed
his way inside.

_Jiminetty!_ I almost fell in a fit, I laughed so hard. "Save me," I
said to Westy, "before I fall off the platform."

But W