"Great snakes!" whispered Bill. "What's that?"
But we could tell in a minute without asking, for when it reached the tree it stood up and peered around the trunk, aiming a stick and pretending to fire. We knew then that Skinny was on the way.
"It's Skinny!" shouted Benny, throwing a stick at him.
Skinny waved one arm for us to be quiet, then began to wriggle back to the next tree. Making his way slowly from tree to tree, with a quick dash he finally reached the roof, where he felt safe.
"That was a close call, Skinny," said Bill. "I heard a bee buzzin' around out there in the orchard, a few minutes ago."
"Bee, nothin'!" Skinny told him, still pointing with his gun and looking around in every direction. "They pretty near had me surrounded."
That was the beginning of this history, which tells all about the doings of the Band, that set all the people talking about us for miles around.
Perhaps you never heard about the Band; how we found a cave at Peck's Falls, part way up the mountain, and had all kinds of fun playing there and on Bob's Hill. There are eight of us in all. Skinny is captain. His folks call him Gabriel but we don't like that name. Skinny is a good name for him, he is so fat. He can run though, even if he is heavy, and you would think that he could fight some if you had seen him once, when the Gingham Ground Gang got after us.
Benny Wade is the littlest fellow in the bunch but he feels just as big as anybody and sometimes that is almost as good as being big. Besides these there are Harry, Wallie, Chuck, Bill Wilson, Hank Bates,—Oh, yes, I most forgot,—and myself.
My name is John Alexander Smith. The boys call me Pedro, and I have been secretary ever since Tom Chapin found the cave. It's up to me to write the doings of the Band and the minutes of the meetings.