TAKEN BY SURPRISE.
"What's the matter with you boys?" demanded the scout master, as Ted and Lil Artha drew up in front of him.
"They've come in on Abe, sir, and are threatening to do all sorts of awful things to him, the great beasts!" exclaimed the tall runner, between pants.
"Speak plainer, please," Mr. Garrabrant said, sternly, so as to subdue some of the rampant excitement that threatened to impede a clear flow of words. "Who came in on Abe—was it animals you meant, or men?"
"Men, thir, and two of the toughest you ever thaw," Ted managed to declare. "They were eating up all the stuff we've been at such pains to carry over, and threatened the thick man with all thorts of trouble because he thaid he didn't have thuch a thing as a drop of whisky in hith place."
"Two hoboes, most likely," muttered the scout master, as his firm teeth came together with a snap that meant business.
"That's what I thaid, thir, but Lil Artha, he theemed to think he recognized the bullies as a couple of jail birds," Ted went on.
"You see, sir," Arthur spoke up as he saw Mr. Garrabrant look questioningly at him, "I remembered seeing the pictures of those two rascals that broke into some house near Rockaway last Spring. They had it posted up in police headquarters at Hickory Ridge when I went in to pay for our dog license. And I don't soon forget faces, sir, or names either, for that matter. Unless I miss my guess these two ugly scamps were Jim Rowdy and Bill Harris, wanted bad in Rockville, with a reward offered for their capture."
"You may be right, Theodore," observed the scout master, seriously. "They were never caught, I remember. The strange thing about it was, that the house they entered and robbed was that of my friend, Colonel Hitchens."
"The same gentleman who owned the lost monkey?" cried one of the scouts.