“The one you took from in front of my house,” I said. “You’ll either give it to me or I’ll have you arrested. If you think I’m afraid of you, you’re mistaken. And you can keep your hands off me, too. You better button your coat or you’ll be stealing your own watch next.” He just began laughing. “That’s all right,” I said; “I mean what I say.” He took the flashlight out of the car and said, “You don’t mean this, do you?” “Yes, I mean that,” I said; “it’s got this fellow’s initials on, so you needn’t try to make us think it’s yours.” He just gave me a poke with it and kept on laughing. Gee, I was mad. “Your hands remind me of tanglefoot flypaper,” I said. “Yes?” he just laughed. “Well, here’s your old light. What’s the matter with you kids? Can’t you take a joke? I just wanted to see if you were good at tracking. You claim to be such great Buffalo Bills——” I said, “Yes? Well, you’ve got Jesse James looking like a Sunday School teacher.” “I see you’re all right at trailing,” he said; “here take your light. I was giving you a test. What’s the matter with you?” He was very easy and offhand like, but I could see he was kind of nervous. He said, “And I suppose you’ll be telling the whole town about your great stunt.” “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’d be ashamed to remind the town that there’s such a fellow as you here. All we want is what belongs to us.” He began digging down in his pocket, all the while saying, “Well, we’ll just keep it a little secret between ourselves and——” I guess just then he found he didn’t have any money. Because he finished up by saying, “And we’ll have some ice cream sodas the first time I meet you on Main Street. Now how’s that?” “Sure,” I said, “and we’ll put the spoons in our pockets when we get through.” “Well, now, you’re not going to go round shouting, huh?” he said, kind of anxious. Then for the first time Westy spoke. He said, “We promise not to tell anybody, if that’s what you mean. So you needn’t worry about that.” “How about you, Kiddo?” Charlie Slausen asked. “Oh, I promise,” I said. “Well, then, let’s see if you’re as good at keeping your word as you are at tracking,” he said. “I thought you’d find me. Now it’s a go, is it? Not a word?” “That’s what we told you,” I said. Gee whiz, I was so disgusted I could hardly speak to him. “Climb out through that window,” he said. Then for the first time I noticed that he had closed the big door. “Go ahead,” he said; “I’ll come out after you.” He was such a blamed peculiar kind of a fellow that we didn’t have any idea what he was up to. Whatever he did seemed to be kind of on the sly. The window was on the side of the garage. After we had climbed through we started back up Willow Place. Pretty soon we saw a dark figure going across the street very quietly and we thought it must be him. “I guess he doesn’t want his father to know he was using the car,” Westy said. “That’s why he sneaks out.” “He had to come in with it, though,” I said.