CHAPTER III
TRACKING THE ROBBERS
WE didn't have any idea who took our things and there didn't seem to be any way of finding out. The ground in the woods was carpeted with pine needles, which left no trace of footprints.
We thought that maybe those girls that we had chased had taken our dinner to get even, and it might have been the Summer Street boys, or maybe the Gingham Ground Gang.
We scattered, like Skinny told us, and gradually worked out from the center, crawling on our hands and knees, and watching every inch of the ground and the bushes.
We didn't get any trace at all until I found a potato. Then Skinny, who was a little ahead of me and at one side, gave a groan and yelled:
"Here's my wishbone. They've eaten all my fried chicken."
It always makes Skinny mad to have somebody eat his fried chicken.
Farther on we found pieces of eggshell and then more, as if somebody had peeled an egg while walking and thrown the shells on the ground.
We knew then that there was no chance of getting our dinners back, but we followed the trail, just the same.
After a time we came to the queerest looking tracks, where somebody had stepped on a soft piece of ground. Benny found them first.
"The spoor!" he yelled. "The spoor! I've found the spoor."
"Well, don't tell the whole town about it," said Skinny. "Keep quiet and we'll surround 'em."
"But the chicken and eggs are gone," he added, after a moment. "I was going to give you some of that chicken, Bill."
We stopped and had a long look at the tracks. There were four footprints and a hole, which looked as if it had been made with a stick, or cane. Three of the prints were like those which any man would make in walking and one was the print of a bare foot, only it had a queer look that we couldn't understand.
"We've got 'em," whispered Skinny. "We'll know that footprint again anywhere we find it. Forward, and mum's the word!"
Twice after that we found the same queer footprint; once in the dust of a road that runs along the south side of Plunkett's woods, and again on the edge of a brook which comes down from the mountain somewhere.
Then we lost the trail and didn't know where to go. Just because we didn't know what else to do, we followed the brook up, until we came to a gully out of sight from the road.
Skinny was ahead, aiming with his stick and saying what he would do if he should catch the fellow that stole his chicken. All of a sudden we saw him drop behind a bush and lie still. We dropped, too. We didn't know what for, but I've noticed that it is 'most always a good thing to drop first and find out why afterward. Then we crawled slowly up to him to see what had happened.
There, sitting on the ground in a grassy ravine, near the brook, were two men, and they were eating what remained of our lunch. One of them had his left shoe off and his foot done up in a bandage. That was what had made the track look so queer.
Now that we had caught them we didn't know what to do with them, for they were too big for us to tackle.
"I believe we could get away with the lame one," whispered Skinny, "only they have about eaten it all up; so what's the use? Besides, the other one looks as big as a house."
"If we only had a rope, Skinny," said Benny, "you could creep up behind and lasso them, the same as you did the robber out near Starved Rock."
"Bet your life I could," he replied, "but we haven't got one. Fellers, don't you ever go out again without a rope. You can't ever tell when you will need it."
"Great snakes!" said Bill, thinking of the chicken Skinny had been going to give him. "I'm starving to death. Let's heave some rocks at 'em, anyhow, and then run."
He picked up a big stone as he spoke and was going to throw it, when Hank caught his arm.
"Wait," said he. "I know a trick worth two of that. I'm going to shoot 'em."
"Shoot them?" I gasped in surprise. "What with?"
"With my camera. You fellows stay here out of sight and caw like a crow if they make any move before I am ready for them. If I can only get behind that clump of bushes back of them without their seeing me, I'll take their picture."
"Aw, cut it out," said Bill.
But Hank was gone, and after a little we could see him running through a field out of sight of the men, so as to come into the ravine from the other end. Pretty soon we saw him crawling in, creeping from bush to bush, in sight only for a second at a time.
There was not a sound except the voices of the men, who were talking about something, and the ground might have opened and swallowed Hank for all we could see of him.
We waited a long time and began to get nervous, not knowing what had happened, and I saw Bill feeling around for another stone.
Then all of a sudden Hank stood up above the bushes he had told us about. He looked toward where he knew we were hiding and put one finger to his lips. Then he tossed a stone toward the men and dropped down out of sight again before it could fall.
"Great snakes!" whispered Bill. "If he's goin' to throw, why don't he do it, and not give a baby toss like that?"
Skinny held up one hand warningly as the pebble fell into the brook right back of the men, making a little splash and gurgle, as if a frog, or maybe a trout, had leaped out after a fly.
When they heard it both men jumped up and stood there in the sunshine, looking toward the sound. We couldn't see Hank, but knew that he was somewhere in the bushes taking their picture.
You almost could have heard our hearts beat for a minute, not knowing what would happen. Then the men sat down again and went on talking.
We waited five minutes to give Hank a chance to get away, and crawled back the way we had come. When we reached the road we heard a crow cawing in the woods and knew that he was safe.
"You answer, Benny," said Skinny. "You do it best."
He gave three caws so real that I almost thought it was a sure enough crow. Hank joined us and we hurried down the road toward home, hoping that the dinner would not be all eaten up.
"Did you get the picture?" I asked.
He nodded. "I think so, but I can't be sure until it has been developed. I had a splendid chance. They stood just right and there was a fine opening through the bushes."
"It took you a long time," grumbled Bill. "I could have hit them with a rock easy."
"I was trying to hear what they were saying. I couldn't hear very well, but I think they are robbers or something."
"You bet they are robbers," said Skinny. "Didn't they steal my fried chicken?"
We didn't think much more about the men because we had important work on hand. The first thing we had to do was to eat dinner. That is always important, especially when your mother knows how to cook beefsteak that makes you crazy just to smell. After that came a ball game. Our nine, the "Invincibles," played a picked nine from Summer Street. We beat, 25 to 19.
I didn't see any of the boys again until in church, Sunday morning. When I went in Bill Wilson was there, looking so dressed up that I hardly knew him.
He saw me and motioned for me to come into his pew, but Ma wouldn't let me do it. Bill had something on his mind. It was easy to tell that. He looked excited, and every time I turned around he went through with all sorts of motions with his mouth, trying to make me understand what he wanted to say.
It bothered me. Every time the minister twisted up his face, trying to make us understand how important it was what he was saying, I'd think of Bill's mouth going back of me. I couldn't help it.
When at last we went into Sunday school he told me.
"Great snakes, Pedro!" said he, grabbing me by one arm. "Haven't you heard about it?"
"How can I tell whether I have or not, when I don't know what it is?" I told him.
"They robbed Green's store last night; stole him blind."
"Who did?"
"The guys that we saw yesterday. Our robbers."
When Bill told me that you could have knocked me down with a feather. It made me almost as excited as he was. He didn't have time to say any more because teacher made him sit at the end of the line away from me so that he wouldn't whisper so much.
But after Sunday school was over he told me all about it. Burglars had broken into Green's store during the night. They blew open the safe and took all the money, nearly one hundred dollars, and they carried off a lot of knives and revolvers. There is an alley back of the store. They broke into the basement from there and then made their way upstairs.
"How do you know that it was our robbers who did it?" I asked.
Bill drew himself up and swelled out his chest, just like Skinny does sometimes.
"I'm a Boy Scout, ain't I?" he said. "A corporal, too."
"You are only a Tenderfoot," I told him.
That was true. You have to be a Tenderfoot before you can get to be a real Scout.
"It's the same thing," he said, winking one eye. "One of the robbers has a tender foot, anyhow."
"Look here, Bill," I told him. "You are getting to be worse than Skinny. What are you talking about?"
"Pedro," he said, "you'll never make a Scout. You're a good bandit and a good secretary, but this Scout business is too much for you. I saw their tracks; that's what."
"In the alley?"
He nodded. "Come on and I'll show you."
We hurried down to Center Street and turned into the alley back of the stores. The ground in the alley was hard and didn't show any tracks except wagon ruts.
Bill looked up and down the alley to make sure that nobody was watching; then tiptoed over to one side, and lifted up a big piece of wrapping paper, which lay there as if it had been blown out of the store. Under the paper there was the same kind of footprint which we had followed from Plunkett's woods the day before.
There was no doubt about it. The man with a bandaged foot must have been in the alley back of the store which had been robbed.
Bill was the proudest fellow you ever saw over that footprint. When I had finished looking at it he put the paper back again and we went out into the street.
"What do you think of that?" said he. "I guess Skinny ain't the whole thing—on Sundays."
"Does the marshal know?"
"I haven't told a soul except you, Pedro. I am saving it for the Band—I mean the patrol. This is our chance. What's the good of bein' a Scout if you don't do any scoutin'?"
"Anyhow, I think we ought to tell the marshal about this," I said. "Those robbers are not going to wait for the Scouts to get busy. They probably jumped a freight last night and are in New York by this time. But maybe the marshal could do something."
Bill was bound to tell the other Scouts about it first. So after dinner we got the boys together and all went over and took a look at the footprint.
Skinny was even more excited than Bill was.
"We are hot on the trail, fellers," said he. "The thing to do is to surround them. We ought to have captured them yesterday. Bet your life we'll take a rope next time."
But when Pa found us talking it over on our woodpile, and we told him about it, he said for us to go to the marshal's at once, and if we didn't he would.
It being Sunday, we went to the marshal's house and found him sitting on the front porch dressed in his best clothes. He was some surprised when he saw the eight of us walk into his yard. It made us wish that we had uniforms on.
"To what do I owe the honor of this visit?" said he. "Is this a committee of distinguished citizens to ask me to run for mayor or something?"
Bill was bursting with the news, but Skinny was the first to speak.
"We want you to run for those burglars," he said, "and we can tell you who they are."
When he heard that the marshal began to get interested.
"Well, who were they? Maybe," he went on, smiling at us, "you youngsters have come to give yourselves up."
"We didn't do it," put in Bill. "We wouldn't do such a thing, but we know who did. We don't know his name, but we know his track. We could have caught him yesterday if we'd wanted to. I wish we had now."
Then we told him about losing our dinners and following the robbers through Plunkett's woods, and about the queer looking track made by the bandaged foot.
"I'd know that footprint in China," said Bill, "and I found one just like it in the alley back of Green's store. The man with the lame foot made it. I 'most know he did."
"Say, William, you are a regular sleuth," said the marshal. "I have a notion to put you on the force."
But he didn't guy us any more after that. He put on his coat and walked downtown with us.
After he had looked at the footprint he covered it up again so that nobody would step on it.
"That's the one all right," Hank told him. "There were two of them. I heard them say something about robbing, when I was taking their pictures."
"Taking their pictures! They don't go around breaking into stores with an official photographer along, do they?"
"I don't know what they go around with," Hank said, "but I crept up close behind them and lay back of a bush where I could hear them talking, although I couldn't understand much of what they said. I thought it would be fun to take their pictures when they didn't know anything about it."
"They stood up when Hank threw a stone and looked right at the camera, only they didn't know it was there," Benny explained.
"Great Scott, boy! Do you mean to tell me that you took a photograph of the rascals?"
"I snapped them all right," Hank told him, "but I won't know whether I got a good picture or not until I develop the roll. I haven't done it yet."
"Well, you develop it right away, or, better still, get your camera and we'll have Marsh, the photographer, do it and make sure of things. He'll do it, if it is Sunday."
Hank hung back. "Can't you wait a while?" he asked. "I've got five shots left in the camera and don't want to waste them. They cost money."
The marshal looked disgusted. "Waste them! How much did they cost?"
"Twenty-five cents a roll; six in a roll."
The marshal pulled a quarter out of his pocket and handed it to him.
"You'll be a rich man some day," said he. "Now that roll of films belongs to me and that picture is going to be developed before you are an hour older. Can you do the job or shall I look up Marsh?"
"I can do it all right, if there is any picture to develop."
"Very well, go ahead with it and bring it down to my office just as soon as you can. And I'll tell you further, young fellow, if we catch those burglars through your help, you'll get part of the reward."
Hank looked at us a moment with his eyes shining. Then he drew himself up.
"I'm a Scout," said he, "and Scouts are not looking for rewards. 'A Scout's duty is to be useful and to help others.' The book says so."
It made us all feel proud to have Hank say that. The marshal gave a surprised whistle.
"If that is the case," said he, laughing, "give me back my quarter."
But Hank wouldn't do that, although Skinny nudged him. I don't suppose you can learn to be a Scout all at once.