Elmer nodded his head and snickered.
"Let me take that cap of yours, Mark," he said, and the article in question was eagerly handed over to him. "Look here, Phil, this cap was found under those peach trees you've heard about, and on the morning the colonel discovered they had been raided. Luckily my chum was able to prove that he couldn't have been here; and a lot of us knew that he had lost this cap a mile away on the bank of the Sunflower, just as evening set in. But it's been a dark mystery how it got here."
Phil had turned red at mention of the peach trees. Then his glance went past Elmer to the big Siberian wolf hound.
"I reckon it must be up to Bruno, then," he remarked. "Let's see—yes, he was off that night, else I'd never dared do what I did."
"And if you examine the inside of the cap," Elmer went on, steadily, "you'll find the lining all torn, as if he had been shaking it like he did that old shoe just now. The marks look to me like teeth had torn the lining. And when the colonel handed it to me, I could feel that it seemed to be more or less wet inside."
"Proven beyond the least doubt!" cried Mark, smiling broadly. "Bruno came on my cap while he was scouring the country. He fetched it home, as he does other things that have belonged to people. And when he was going past those peach trees he got scent of the fact that some one had been there during his absence. So perhaps he laid the cap down, to nose all around, and forgot to pick it up again!"
"That's just my theory to a dot," laughed Elmer; "so on the whole, I guess, Mark, you'd better call it solved, and let the matter drop."
"I'm only too willing," replied the other, nodding. "But don't you think we owe it to the colonel to take him into the secret?"
"I sure do," replied Elmer; "because he was puzzled as much as we were. Still, you remember he was ready to own up that he couldn't believe you guilty; no matter if a dozen caps bearing your initials were found under his trees."
"That shows what it means tuh have a good reputation," remarked Phil Lally between his set teeth. "But, boys, never again for me. I've seen what a fool road I was trampin' with that habit of mine, and I've changed my course. I'm goin' tuh make good this time, or bust a b'iler tryin'."