The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour | Page 9

when he sprawled
over the rope.
"Say, perhaps the boys outside may get him!" gasped another scout,
who must have had the breath squeezed out of his lungs when the
balance of the eager squad fell over him heavily, making a cushion of
his body.
"Only hope they do," grumbled Nuthin. "But say, what's that you've
picked up, Paul? Looks mighty like a hat!"
"It is a hat, and fellows, I've got a pretty good notion I've seen it

before," responded the scout leader, as he held the object aloft.
The others crowded around, every eye fastened on the article picked up
by Paul just under the window that had afforded the fugitive a chance
to escape.
"It's Ward's lid, as sure as you live!" declared Bobolink, immediately.
"That's what it is," observed another, with conviction in his tone; "ain't
I had it in my hands more'n once at school? That was Ward in here,
doing these stunts!"
"Well," added Paul, cautiously, "it looks that way; but how do we know?
We didn't see his face, you remember. It might be another fellow
wearing his hat. This might satisfy the trustees that we didn't have
anything to do with the ringing of the bell; but I'd like to have better
proof, fellows."
"What's all that talking going on out there?" demanded Nuthin, who
had seated himself, the better to get at his bruised shin, and ease the
pain by rubbing.
Bobolink drew himself up into the window; and as he did so his hat
also fell off.
"There," declared Paul, quickly, "you see just how it happened to the
fellow with the black face; and he was in too big a hurry just then to
drop down again, so he could get his hat."
"What's all the row about, Bobolink? Have they got the slippery coon?"
asked Philip Towne, a member of the second patrol.
"Peter grabbed our chum as he was running after the shadow," replied
the boy perched on the windowsill. "He's shaking him as if he believed
it was William up to some of his old tricks, and that he rang that bell.
Now the other boys are crowding around trying to pull him off."
"But what about Ward? Has he gotten clean away?" asked a

disappointed one, of the lookout.
"Looks as if they couldn't flag him," came the answer in dejected tones;
"anyhow, I don't see any fellows holdin' a prisoner. Let's get outside,
and help explain to Peter, boys."
So they went straggling back to the exit, and passed outside, Paul
leaving the burning lamp in the vestibule as proof of his story.
Peter was an excitable German, who had been very good to the boys.
Indignant at what he thought to be an exhibition of base ingratitude on
their part, he had shaken William until the lad's teeth rattled.
"You vill wake up de goot beoples mit your rackets, hey?" the old
sexton was crying, "I knows apout how you does all de times, Villiam
Carberries, ain't it? Mebbe you t'ink it fun to ring dot pell like dot, unt
pring all de neighbors aroundt mit a rush. Hey! vat you poys say? He
didn't pull dot rope? Who did, den, tell me dot? Mebbe I didn't grab mit
him as he vas runnin' away! Hello! mister scout leader, how vas dot?"
Paul had come up while William was being shaken like a rat in the
clutches of a terrier.
"Say, Paul, tell him, for goodness sake," stammered the innocent victim,
as he squirmed in the clutches of the indignant sexton, "ask him to let
up on this rough house business. I'm just falling to pieces!"
"Wait a minute, Peter," the scout leader immediately called out,
"William was with the rest of us down in the basement at the time the
bell began to ring. We all started to try and catch the fellow who pulled
the rope; but I'm afraid he got away. He went through the church, and
out of an open window. You can see for yourself when you go inside,
that he tied a rope to trip any of us when we chased him."
Peter eased up his hold, and the agile William broke away, as if only
too glad to be able to catch his breath again.
"Yes, and Peter, we know who it was, too!" declared Nuthin, eagerly.

"That is, we think we do," broke in Paul, holding up his find. "This hat
dropped when he climbed up to the window. And a lot of us have seen
it before."
"Why, it belongs to Ward Kenwood!" exclaimed Jud Elderkin, as he
bent forward to take a better look at the captured headgear.
"How do you know?" asked Paul, for a purpose.
"Well, I've seen it on him lots of times,"