Part 6

I whispered it to Poetry when I saw what the policemen were doing right that minute, saying, “Anybody can’t get by with any kind of crime,” and Poetry, who is almost as good a Christian as Little Jim is, and who not only has a lot of poems on the tip of his tongue ready to be quoted any second, but also knows many Bible verses, quoted one of them to me right that minute instead of a poem, and it was, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap,” and he added to it another which was, “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.”

One of the cops heard him and looked up from what he was doing and said, “That’s right, son; that’s what my mother used to say.”

Then we quit talking, almost, and in the light of his spotlight from his car, watched what was going on. “What in the world?” I thought when I saw the policeman take what looked like a fishing-tackle box out of his car, carry it to the gate and set it down. Then he went back to the car and brought out something else. “What’s that?” Poetry wanted to know, and the friendly cop said, “A flash-bulb camera with a reversible tripod. We’re going to snap a picture of these tire tracks.”

“Why?” I thought, but didn’t want to seem dumb enough to say so, ’cause I supposed Poetry knew.

First, the cop laid a black cardboard down alongside of the tire track, the edge of the cardboard looking like a ruler with little white inch marks on it. Then he set up his camera with its lens focused right straight down on the track. As quick as a wink, there was a blinding flash of light which showed me that it was a flashlight picture they were taking.

Right away, he opened the fishing-tackle-box-looking kit and took out what looked like a Flit can, like the kind Mom uses on flies and also on bugs and stuff in our garden, and began to spray something very carefully all over the track for about two feet of it, holding the spray gun about three feet high.

“It’s shellac,” the policeman said, and I said, “Why?” and he said, “Wait and see,” which I had to do.

Pretty soon, he stopped spraying, screwed off the container at the bottom of the spraying device and screwed on another can of something else and started in doing the same thing, pumping away very carefully, not letting the spray strike very hard on the sandy tracks, so as not to make any of the sand move.

I looked at the other things in the kit which was spread wide open in front of us, and saw what looked like a large salt shaker like the one Mom uses when she is cooking raw fried potatoes, also there was a cup made out of rubber, two other containers, a spoon and what is called a spatula, which looked like a long flat stick our doctor uses when he looks into my throat and makes me say “Ah,” and also looks at my tongue and the place where my tonsils used to be.

“The dry shellac makes the tire impression firm enough to stand the weight of the plaster of Paris without crumbling it,” the policeman said, and even though I didn’t understand what it was all about or why, it was very interesting to watch. Right away he started getting the plaster of Paris ready.

It was certainly an interesting sight. They mixed some of the plaster of Paris in the rubber cup, doing it almost exactly like I had seen our Sugar Creek dentist do it, and also like we do it in school when we make an art plaque or something. The only difference was, they sprinkled in a little salt to make it harden quicker. The plaster of Paris was poured on the top of the water, and allowed to sink to the bottom of the rubber cup until the water couldn’t take any more, then it was stirred with a spoon, and very carefully dipped out with the spoon into the tire impressions. First, though, they made a little cardboard wall along the side of the track so the plaster of Paris wouldn’t run over the edges.

“What’s he doing now?” I said to Poetry, when some sticks and twigs and little pieces of string were laid on top of the first layer of plaster of Paris.

“I don’t know,” Poetry said, “reinforcing it, maybe,” which, it turned out, he was. Right away another thicker layer of plaster of Paris was put on, and then it was ready to let harden.

After awhile, when they were sure it was solid, they would just lift it up and there would be a perfect plaster cast, a foot and a half long, of the tire marks, which, whenever they found the kidnapper’s car, would help them prove that he was really guilty.

We couldn’t stay there all night, though, ’cause tomorrow the gang had a lot of things to do and see, and besides when a boy wants to be in good health, he has to have plenty of sleep at night, so the firewarden decided to drive us back to camp, while the police looked all around the place where we’d found the little girl, and also in Santa’s boathouse for other clues. We gave them the yellow scarf with the paint on it, and went with the firewarden back to our camp to try to get some excited sleep.

Boy oh boy, it had been a great experience! About an hour later, after waking up all the gang and telling them the news, we were in our tents again ready to sleep. The big hot round rock in the pail in the center of the tent certainly had helped keep the tent warm, and when I was in my sleeping bag again, as warm as toast, I felt that I had really done something important in life... Before I went to sleep again, I got to thinking about that little kidnapped girl, knowing how glad her parents would feel when they got the news which they maybe already had, and were maybe already on their way up here to see her. Of course, if she was really sick, and had been mistreated terribly by the kidnapper, she would maybe have to be in the hospital quite a while.

For a few minutes just before I dropped off to sleep, I was listening to the waves lapping against our sandy shore, and was thinking and thinking and thinking. I knew that if I had been up and was standing by the shore looking out on the moonlit water, the rolling waves would maybe look just like our oats field does down along Sugar Creek when the wind is blowing ... waving and waving and rolling and rolling and rolling and looking very wonderful; and for a minute I could see my pop sitting up on our big binder, driving along, and maybe singing a song which nearly always, when Pop sang or whistled, was a hymn we used in our church.... It might be the one that goes:

“Bringing in the sheaves, Bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing Bringing in the sheaves ...”

Then I remembered Poetry’s Bible verse and it was, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”.... It was absolutely silly, I thought again, for anybody to sow a lot of sin in his life and not expect to reap a harvest of the same kind, and the verse also said God couldn’t be mocked, which maybe meant that every man would be punished for living a sinful life. Then I imagined different things, such as Pop saying to Mom, “I wonder how Bill is getting along up North,” and Mom would say, “Oh fine--I hope. I wonder if he is warm enough. It gets so cold up there at night, and you know how he is--he kicks the covers off in his sleep, and lies there and half freezes without even waking up.” And Pop would remember that I had my sleeping bag, and Mom would sigh and they’d go to sleep. They really were wonderful parents, I thought ... and the waves of the blue water lake rolled and rolled and tossed around some, and then a great big pair of horns stuck themselves up out of the lake, and then a cow’s face, and then a whole cow splashed and splashed, and the water turned all blue all around the big blue cow and Mom tried to stop him from swishing around so much on account of he was splashing around in her washing machine and getting too much bluing on her clothes...

And then I guess I must have dropped off to sleep, ’cause the next thing I knew it was morning and the gang was making a lot of boys’ noise and we had another wonderful day in which to live and have new adventures.

Ho hum, here I am, with all the pages filled up and not even room to tell you about how the kidnapper got away from the police and how the Sugar Creek Gang ran kersmack onto his trail all by themselves the very next day, and what a fierce fight we had and everything. But just as quick as I can, I’ll get going on that exciting story, which was maybe the most exciting experience that ever happened to us. Maybe I’ll get started writing tomorrow.

The End

With the passing of summer many of the Sugar Creek creatures disappear. Gone are the birds, the snakes and the toads--like Bill’s old friend, Warty. But a new member of the gang arrives and before winter is past some very interesting and exciting things happen to him, as well as to other members of the Gang.

_Be sure to read all the books in the SCRIPTURE PRESS series:_

THE SUGAR CREEK GANG GOES NORTH ADVENTURE IN AN INDIAN CEMETERY THE SUGAR CREEK GANG DIGS FOR TREASURE NORTH WOODS MANHUNT THE HAUNTED HOUSE AT SUGAR CREEK LOST IN A SUGAR CREEK BLIZZARD THE SUGAR CREEK GANG ON THE MEXICAN BORDER THE GREEN TENT MYSTERY AT SUGAR CREEK 10,000 MINUTES AT SUGAR CREEK THE TRAP LINE THIEF AT SUGAR CREEK BLUE COW AT SUGAR CREEK WATERMELON MYSTERY AT SUGAR CREEK

Other thrilling stories about the Sugar Creek Gang may be ordered from your Christian bookstore

5542

_Published and Distributed Exclusively by_

_SCRIPTURE PRESS_ BOOK DIVISION 434 S. Wabash Ave. © Chicago 5, Ill.

Transcriber’s Note:

Punctuation has been standardised, otherwise the text has been retained as in the original publication except as follows:

Page 4 handerchief stuffed into her mouth _changed to_ handkerchief stuffed into her mouth

Page 11 some of the other girl’s chores _changed to_ some of the other girls’ chores

Page 18 one of the very slendor flower spikes _changed to_ one of the very slender flower spikes

Page 19 sounded like Poetrys’ poetry _changed to_ sounded like Poetry’s poetry

Page 36 Oh boy, or boy _changed to_ Oh boy, oh boy

Page 41 like the windink barefoot-boy paths _changed to_ like the winding barefoot-boy paths

Page 78 can got them cured _changed to_ can get them cured

Page 81 then stood up with here _changed to_ then stood up with her

End of Project Gutenberg's The Sugar Creek Gang Goes North, by Paul Hutchens