"Do you think you can manage?" he asked.
"Well, we'd be a pretty pair of scouts, wouldn't we now, if we failed to make good on a job like this?" scoffed Lil Artha.
He threw his staff over his shoulder, gun fashion, and began tramping up and down before the door of the hidden shack, just as though he were a military sentry on duty.
"I guess you'll do all right, Lil Artha," laughed Elmer.
"Before you go, Elmer," said Mark, "please tell us just why you believe these Italians haven't meant to hurt our chum Nat."
"Well, I just seem to feel it in my bones, and that's about all I can say," returned the other. "I'm more convinced now than ever that it's going to turn out only a silly mistake on their part. Perhaps they've been doing something here that's against the law, and the sight of our uniforms threw them into a panic. They've carried Nat off with them just so he couldn't give the alarm, and bring the rest down on 'em."
"Counterfeiting, perhaps," suggested Mark. "Seems to me I've heard that the Italians are pretty smart at that sort of thing."
"Well, I don't imagine it's anything as serious as that," Elmer replied.
"Then tell us what you do think," demanded Lil Artha.
"You will force my hand, will you?" laughed Elmer.