Pee-wee could not help but feel a certain sympathy with this man, wretch though he was, who on the information of some accomplice outside the prison, had made his escape expecting to be carried safely away the next day and had been crouching, half-starved, in this freight car ever since, waiting. "What will you do if they don't take up the car for a week?" he asked. "They might look inside of it, too; or they might change their minds about taking it." He was anxious for himself for he contemplated with terror his threatened imprisonment, but he could not help being concerned also for this miserable creature and he wondered what would happen if they both remained in the car for several days more, with nothing to eat. Then, surely, the man would be compelled to put a little faith in him and let him go out in search of food. He wondered what he should do in that case--what he ought to do; but that, he realized, was borrowing trouble. Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster, had once said that it is _always bad to play false_. Well, then, would it be bad to play false with an escaped felon--to double-cross him? Pee-wee did not know. His companion interrupted his train of thought "They don' look inside o' way-billed empties--not much," he said, "an' they don't let 'em stan' so long, nuther. I got bad luck, I did, from doin' my trick on a Friday. They'll be 'long pretty quick, though. They reckisitioned all th' empty grain cars fer Buff'lo. I'm lookin' ter hear th' whistle any minute, I am, an' I got a pal waitin' fer me in the yards up ter Buff'lo, wid the duds. When I get there 'n' get me clo's changed, mebbe I'll leave ye come back if me pal 'n' me thinks ye kin be trusted." "I can be trusted now just as much as I could be trusted then," said Pee-wee, greatly disturbed at the thought of this enforced journey; "and how could I get back? I guess maybe you don't know anything about scouts--maybe they weren't started when you were---- Anyway, a scout can be trusted. Anybody'll tell you that. If he gives his word he'll keep it. I don't know anything about what you did and if you ask me if I want to see you get captured I couldn't tell you, because I don't know how I feel. But if you'll let me go now I'll promise not to say anything to anyone. I don't want to go to Buffalo. I want to go to my camp. As long as I know about you, you got to trust me some time and you might as well trust me now." If the fugitive could have seen Pee-wee's earnest face and honest eyes as he made this pitiful appeal, he might have softened a little, even if he had not appreciated the good sense of the boy's remarks. "I'd ruther get me other duds on fust, 'n' I'd like fer ter hev ye meet me pal," he said, with the first touch of humor he had shown. "Now, if yer go ter cuttin' up a rumpus I'll jest hev ter brain ye, see?"