And, honest, it did look that way because it was all gold. But, anyway, you'll find out in the next chapter that gold isn't the only color. There are blue and green and yellow and strawberry and orange and banana and grape-fruit and peaches and russet apples--those are my favorites. Gee whiz, I don't know whether I'm talking about fruit or colors! But one kind of vegetable I like, and that is onions. Anyway, the color I was going to speak about is black. And believe me the next chapter is the darkest one in this book. CHAPTER XXIII FOILED! Most of the people went back to the park with the police department. That girl had been listening to Westy telling the policeman about everything and so now she said to our young hero: "You don't call that binding a bandit with ropes, do you? With him up at the top of the wheel and you down at the bottom." The kid said, "Sure I do, that's distance binding--you're so smart. That shows how much you know about scouting. I suppose you don't know you can signal for miles and miles. Can't you do other things by distance too?" "That's a fine argument," Warde Hollister said. "I invented it," the kid shouted. That girl said, very sarcastic like, "I must say you were very brave to kill that wooden figure. I'm not afraid of snakes, but I'd certainly be afraid of a wooden figure. Tell me, did you ever kill a rag doll?" There were two or three girl friends of hers there and they all started to titter. "Was it our fault if that colored man was made of wood?" Pee-wee said. She said, "Oh, mercy, no. But when you were binding the poor bandit weren't you afraid he'd _bite_ you? He was only a hundred feet or so away, you know. Are you afraid of mice, too?" "No, we're _not_ afraid of mice," Pee-wee said. "And we're not afraid of bugs either. Girls are afraid of June bugs." "That's because they're black," she said. "Scouts aren't afraid of anything, they don't care what color it is----" "Purple or lavender or pale white or dark black, what do we care?" I said. "Do you see that hill away over there in the east?" the kid shouted at her. "That's Blakeley's Hill. That's miles away. We came from there in a bee-line. Do you think that we let anything stand in our way? We're--we're--invincible. Houses--we go right through them. Even the movie people followed us, so now you can tell. Rivers--do you think that river stopped us? Do you know what the points of the compass are? We came straight west, just as straight as an arrow. Now we're going up on that ridge, where that big tree is. If you want to follow us, you can. Then you can see just how we do it. You'll see us--you'll see us go right through houses. I'm not blaming girls that they don't have adventures----" She said, "Oh, isn't that too sweet?" "And who are you going to kill next?" another one of those girls wanted to know. "Some terrible black man?" "The blacker the better," I said.