Bobolink drew himself up into the window; and as he did so his hat also fell off.
"There," declared Paul, quickly, "you see just how it happened to the fellow with the black face; and he was in too big a hurry just then to drop down again, so he could get his hat."
"What's all the row about, Bobolink? Have they got the slippery coon?" asked Philip Towne, a member of the second patrol.
"Peter grabbed our chum as he was running after the shadow," replied the boy perched on the windowsill. "He's shaking him as if he believed it was William up to some of his old tricks, and that he rang that bell. Now the other boys are crowding around trying to pull him off."
"But what about Ward? Has he gotten clean away?" asked a disappointed one, of the lookout.
"Looks as if they couldn't flag him," came the answer in dejected tones; "anyhow, I don't see
any fellows holdin' a prisoner. Let's get outside, and help explain to Peter, boys."
So they went straggling back to the exit, and passed outside, Paul leaving the burning lamp in the vestibule as proof of his story.
Peter was an excitable German, who had been very good to the boys. Indignant at what he thought to be an exhibition of base ingratitude on their part, he had shaken William until the lad's teeth rattled.
"You vill wake up de goot beoples mit your rackets, hey?" the old sexton was crying, "I knows apout how you does all de times, Villiam Carberries, ain't it? Mebbe you t'ink it fun to ring dot pell like dot, unt pring all de neighbors aroundt mit a rush. Hey! vat you poys say? He didn't pull dot rope? Who did, den, tell me dot? Mebbe I didn't grab mit him as he vas runnin' away! Hello! mister scout leader, how vas dot?"