chop his way through the forests if the train got stalled. He had his camera and his air rifle and his swamp boots and his scout whistle, and he had his duffel bag on the end of his scout staff. And, oh, boy, he had a new watch.

I said, “Good night, you must have been robbing the church steeple. Where did you get that young clock? If it only had an electric bulb in it we could use it for a headlight. Is it supposed to keep time?”

“It ought to be able to keep a whole lot of time, it’s big enough,” Harry said. “Are you going to take it with you or send it by express?”

I said, “Oh, sure, a big watch like that can keep a lot of time; it holds about a quart.”

“You make me tired!” Pee-wee shouted. “It’s warranted for a year.”

“I bet it takes a year to wind it up,” Westy said.

“Anyway we can drink out of it if we get thirsty,” Will Dawson told him. “It’s got a nice spring in it.”

“It doesn’t vary a second,” Pee-wee shouted. “Look at the clock in the station; that’s Western Union time.”

Gee whiz, but that kid was proud of his new watch. He looked at it about every ten seconds while we were waiting for the train, and every once in a while he looked up at the sun. I guess maybe he thought the sun was a little late, hey? When we got to the city he checked up all the clocks he saw on the way over to the Grand Central Station, to see if they were right, and when we were whizzing up along the Hudson on the Lake Shore Limited he kept a time table in one hand and his watch in the other so as to find out if we reached Poughkeepsie and Albany on time.

Just before we all turned in for the night, Harry and Brent Gaylong went over and sat by him and began jollying him about the watch. The rest of us sprawled around on the Pullman seats, listening and laughing. Gee whiz, when Harry and Brent Gaylong get together, good night!

Harry said, “The trouble with those heavy duty watches is they’re not intended for night work. They work all right in the daytime, but you see at night when they haven’t got the sun to go by, they get to sprinting——”

“Do you know what kind of a watch this is?” Pee-wee shouted at him. “It’s a scout watch——”

Brent said in that sober way of his, “That’s just the trouble. Those scout watches go scout-pace. A scout is always ahead of time; so is a scout watch. If a scout watch is supposed to arrive at three o’clock, it arrives at two—an hour beforehand. A scout is prompt.”

“Positively,” Harry said; “by to-morrow morning that watch will be an hour ahead of time. It’ll beat every other watch by an hour.”

“I bet it’s right on the minute to-morrow morning,” Pee-wee shouted. “That’s a scout watch; it’s advertised in Boys’ Life. The ad. said it keeps perfect time.”

“How long have you had it?” Rossie Bent wanted to know.

“My father gave it to me for a present on account of this trip,” the kid said; “he gave it to me just before I started off.”

“So you haven’t had it overnight yet?” Brent asked him. “You don’t know whether it’s good at night work or not.”

“They always race in the dark,” Harry said; “that’s the trouble with those boy scout watches.”

By this time the colored porter and about half a dozen passengers were standing around listening and laughing.

Harry said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Kid. I happen to know something about those watches and they’re not to be trusted. The boy scout watch is a pile of junk. If that watch isn’t at least an hour ahead of time when we sit down to breakfast to-morrow morning, I’ll buy you the biggest pie they’ve got in the city of Cleveland. If your watch is wrong by as much as an hour you’ll have to do a good turn between every two stations we stop at till we get to Chicago. What do you say?”

“I won’t have to worry about any good turns,” Pee-wee shot back at him.

Harry said, “All right, is it a go?”

“Sure it’s a go,” the kid shouted. “Mm! Mm! I’ll be eating pie all day to-morrow.”

CHAPTER IV—PEE-WEE’S WATCH

I guess Pee-wee dreamed of pie that night. Anyway he didn’t wake up very early in the morning. When the train stopped at Cleveland for eats, he was dead to the world. The rest of us all went into the railroad station for breakfast and Harry took a couple of sandwiches and a hard boiled egg and a bottle of milk back to the train for our young hero when he should wake up.

When we were eating breakfast in the station, Harry said, “Well, I see that none of you kids has ever been out west before. Hadn’t we better set our watches?”

I looked up at the clock in the station and, good night, then I knew why he and Brent had been jollying Pee-wee the night before. The dock in the station was an hour behind my watch.

“Western time, boys,” Harry said; “set your watches back.”

“And keep still about it when you go back on the train,” Rossie said, “if you want to see some fun.”

“We’ve lost an hour,” Westy said.

“Don’t you care,” Brent said; “don’t bother looking for it; we’ll find it coming back.”

Gee whiz, I had to laugh when I thought of Pee-wee lying sound asleep in his upper berth with his trusty boy scout watch under his pillow. When we went back on the train all the berths except Pee-wee’s were made into seats. There were only about a half a dozen passengers besides ourselves in that car, and Harry went around asking them all not to mention to Pee-wee about western time.

I guess it was about a half an hour later the kid woke up. He was so sleepy that he never thought about the time till after he had got washed and dressed, then he came staggering through the car wanting to know where we were. The rest of us were all sprawling in the seats and the passengers were smiling, because I guess they knew what was coming.

Harry said, “Sit down here and have some breakfast, Kid. We thought we wouldn’t bother you to get up when we stopped in Cleveland. What time have you got?”

Pee-wee hauled out his old boy scout turnip and said, “It’s half past nine.”

Harry said, “Oh, not quite as bad as that; boy scouts don’t sleep till half past nine. It’s just—let’s see—it’s just about half past eight.” Then he showed his watch to Pee-wee, kind of careless like.

By that time we were all crowding around waiting to see the fun and the passengers were all looking around and kind of smiling.

Harry said, “Sit down and eat your breakfast, Kid, and don’t let that old piece of junk fool you. What time have you got, Roy?”

I could hardly keep a straight face, but I said, “About half past eight.”

“You see, it’s just as I told you, Kid,” Harry said. “As soon as you go to sleep those boy scout watches take advantage of you. I wouldn’t trust one of them any more than I’d trust a pickpocket. How about that, Brent?”

“Oh, I’ve met some pretty honest pickpockets,” Brent said. “Of course, some of them are dishonest. But it’s the same as it is in every other business; some are honest and some are not. I’ve seen some good, honest, hard working pickpockets. What time is it, Tom Slade?”

Gee whiz, I was afraid when Tom took out his watch, because he usually stands up for Pee-wee, and I was afraid he’d let him know. But he just looked at his watch, very sober, and said, “Pretty nearly twenty minutes of nine.”

“You all make me sick!” Pee-wee yelled. “You think you’re smart, don’t you? You all got together and changed your watches.”

“This is the same watch I always carried,” Brent said.

“I mean you all changed the time,” Pee-wee shouted; “you think you can put one over on me, don’t