For a moment he had a wild impulse to cast this covering off and scream, or at least, to jump from the speeding car.

But a peek from underneath the robe convinced him of the folly of this.

To jump would be to lose his life; to scream--well, what chance would he have with two bloodthirsty robbers armed with seventy pistols and two blackjacks?
There were few boy scouts who could despatch an apple core with such accuracy of aim as W.Harris, but of what avail is an apple core against seventy pistols?
He could not hear all that was said on the front seat but the fragments of talk that he did hear were alarming in the last degree.
"-- best way to handle them," said one of those dark figures.
"I've got a couple of dead ones to worry about," said the other.
Pee-wee curled up smaller under the robe and hardly breathed.

Indeed two dead ones was something to worry about.

Suppose--suppose _he_ should be the third! "One for me, but I'm not worrying about him," said the other.
"We'll get away with it," his companion commented.
Then followed some talk which Pee-wee could not hear, but he felt certain that it was on their favorite topic of murder.