The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour | Page 9

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," came the unhesitating reply. "There may be a few hats like it in Stanhope, but they're scarce as hen's teeth. Besides, I've got my private mark on that hat. Look inside, and see if there isn't a circle and two cross bars, made with a pen on the sweat band?"
Paul stepped over to the street light close by, and examined the inside of the hat.
"You're right, Jud; here's the mark, sure enough. However did you come to put it there inside of Ward's hat?" he asked, smiling.
"Oh!" answered Jud, with a broad grin, "that was my idea of a little joke, fellows. I happened to find his hat one fine day at school, and having a pen in my hand, thought I'd give him something to puzzle his head about. So I made that high sign there. Guess he wondered what it all meant, and if he was marked for a Black Hand victim. But you can roll your hoop, fellows, that this is Ward's lid."
"If we had only caught him, Peter, you would know it was so," observed Jack; who had led the crowd that rushed outdoors, and felt rather cheap because their intended game had succeeded in escaping.
"Look here, what's to hinder us going and