predicament. They would probably not return before morning and he would have at least a little breathing spell in which to consider what he should do, if indeed he could do anything.

The departure of his captors gave him courage and some measure of hope. Freedom he did not hope for, but a brief respite from peril was his. Time, time! What the doomed crave and pray for. That, at least was his.

He had presence of mind enough to refrain from making any sound, for the thieves might still be in the neighborhood for all he knew. The last he had heard of them they had been talking of "handling her" and "giving her a shove" and he did not want them to come back and "handle" him.

So he sat on the rear seat of the big Hunkajunk car ready to withdraw beneath the robe at the first sound of approaching footsteps. If he had been free to make a companionable noise, to whistle or to hum, or to listen to the friendly sound of his own movements he would have felt less frightened. But the need of absolute silence in that dark prison agitated him, and in the ghostly stillness every creak made the place seem haunted.

If he could only have seen where he was! He knew now something of the insane terrors of dark and solitary confinement. So strongly did this terror hold him that for a minute or two he dared not stir upon the seat for fear of causing the least sound which the darkness and strangeness of the place might conjure into spectral voices.

There is but one way to dispel these horrors and that is by throwing them off with quick movement and practical resolve.

He jumped down out of the car, and groping his way through the darkness stumbled against a wall. Moving his hand along this he found it to be of rough boards. Indeed, he had a more conclusive proof of this by the fact that a large splinter of the dried wood pierced his finger, paining acutely. He pulled it out and sucked the bleeding cut, then wound his handkerchief around it. One discovery, at least, he had made; the building, whatever it was, was old. The smell of the board sides informed him of that much. And there was no flooring.

He now stood thinking, wondering what he should do next. And as he paused he heard a sound near him. A sound as of quick, low breathing. In the open such a sound would not have been audible, but in the ghostly darkness of that strange prison he could hear it clearly when he listened. Sometimes he could distinguish the momentary pauses between the breaths and sometimes the faint sound seemed continuous. As he listened in silent, awful terror, the thumping of his heart seemed to interrupt the steady, low sound.

It was not normal breathing surely, but it was the sound of breathing. He was certain of that. He thought it was over near the car.

CHAPTER IX

THE TENTH CASE

The thought that there was a living presence in that spooky dungeon struck terror to Pee-wee's very soul. He could not bring himself to move, much less to speak. But he could not stand idly where he was, and if he should stumble over a human form in that unknown blackness.... What could be more appalling than that? Was this uncanny place a prison for poor, injured captives? Was there, lying just a few feet from him, some suffering victim of those scoundrels? What did it mean? Pee-wee could only stand, listening in growing fear and agitation.

"Who's there?" he finally asked, and his own trembling voice seemed strange to him.

There was no answer.

"Who's there?" he asked again.

Silence; only the low, steady sound; punctuated, as it seemed by his own heart beats.

"Who--is--is anybody there?"

Then, suddenly, in a kind of abandon, he cast off his fears and groped his way with hands before him toward the low sound. Presently his hand was upon something round and small. It had a kind of tube running from it. He felt about this and touched something else. He felt along it; it was smooth and continuous.

And then he knew, and he experienced infinite relief. His hand was upon the spare tire on the rear of the car. The air was slowly escaping in irregular jerks from the valve of this tire, making that low sound, now hardly audible, now clearer and steadier, that escaping air will sometimes cause when passing through a leaky valve. The darkness and Pee-wee's own thumping heart had contributed to the horrible illusion and he smiled in the utter relief which he experienced by the discovery.

But one other discovery he had made also which gave him an inspiration and made him feel foolish that he had not had the inspiration before. The little round thing that he had felt in about the center of the tire was the red tail light of the car; he realized that now. And this discovery reminded him that he could have all the light he wanted by the mere touching of a switch.

"That shows how stupid I am," said Pee-wee. He was so relieved and elated that he could afford to be generous with self accusations. "One thing sure, it shows how when you hunt for a thing you find something else, so if you're mistaken it's a good thing."

This was logical, surely, and he now proceeded to avail himself of the benefit of his chance discovery. Presently this dank, mysterious, spooky dungeon would be bathed in welcome light. Pee-wee climbed into the front seat and moved his hand across the array of nickel dials and buttons on the instrument board. There seemed to be a veritable multitude of little handles and indicators for the control of the Hunkajunk super six touring model. Not even a wireless apparatus, with which Pee-wee's scouting experience had made him familiar, had such a variety of shiny little odds and ends.

Having no knowledge of these things he moved his hand among them cautiously, fearful lest some inadvertent touch might cause the car to go careering into the board wall. He bent his head close to the instrument board in search of printed words indicating the purpose of the various buttons, but the darkness was too dense for him to see anything but the shiny nickel. At the same time his wandering foot, conducting an exploration of its own, came against a little knob.

Pee-wee never knew precisely what he did to cause the startling occurrence which followed. There were two switch buttons, side by side, and in one a small key had been left. Evidently he decided that this was the lighting switch. He was just able to decipher the word IGNITION above it. But alas, the word ignition means SPARK on an auto.

Whether he purposely, in curiosity, stepped on the button in the floor he never knew. In nine cases out of ten it would have required more effort to start the Hunkajunk touring model. But this was the tenth case. In a frantic effort to stop the power, or perhaps in groping with his hand, he pulled down the spark lever, and the six cylinder brute of an engine awoke to life!

Out of the exhaust pipe in back poured the fatal volume of gaseous smoke which spells death, horrible and suffocating, when locked and barred doors and windowless walls enclose the wretched, gasping victim as in a tomb.

CHAPTER X

A RACE WITH DEATH

In close confinement it is all over in a minute in these cases. The victim is poisoned and suffocated like a rat in a hole. Surprising as it may seem, this deadly poison works faster than its victim can act. And with darkness for its ally the only hope lies in presence of mind and quick action.

Pee-wee Harris was a scout. Laugh at him and make fun of him as you will, he was a scout. He was at once the littlest scout and the biggest scout that ever scouting had known. He boasted and bungled, but out of his bungling came triumph. He fell, oh such falls as he fell! But he always landed right side up. He could save the world with a blunder. And then boast of the blunder.

He was not a motorist, he was a scout. Wrong or right (and he was usually