CHAPTER VI.
HUNTING FOR THE MISSING SCOUT.
"Honest, now, Elmer, do you really believe that?" asked Chatz Maxfield, after staring at the scout master in a puzzled manner for half a dozen seconds.
"It looks so, on the face of it," replied the other.
"But plague take it," argued Chatz, "for the life of me I just can't understand, suh, what those fellows would want to make a prisoner of poor Nat for. In all our troop he's about the most harmless scout, except perhaps Jasper Merriweather. Nat is strong as an ox, but he wouldn't hurt a fly if he could help it."
"That's so," echoed Lil Artha. "I've seen him walk around so as not to step on a harmless little snake on the road. And it wasn't because he was afraid of snakes, either. Remember he killed that fierce big copperhead last summer, after the other fellows had skipped out?"
"There's one chance, though," Elmer went on, "that after all Nat may be hiding."
"But he knows the sound of the bugle, and what penalty follows disobedience on the part of a scout," declared Lil Artha.
"That's true enough, fellows," Elmer said, as if he himself might be trying to see through a haze; "but perhaps Nat finds himself in a position where he can't answer us without betraying himself to these unknown men."