"Mr. Jenkins," said Ted, boldly facing hostile eyes, his voice quite steady, "you heard a wild rumor of the sort the Germans in this country are spreading all the time. I have the real facts here, Mr. Hardy. I cut this out of that paper Mr. Jenkins himself brought in, thinking I might need it. It got wet when we crossed the 'prairie,' but you can read it. It is a part of Provost Marshal General Crowder's report on the first draft. It says that out of nearly ten million men not much over five thousand arrests were made for failure to register, that more than half of these, after registering, were released. "'The authorities,'" read the boy from his clipping, "'wisely assumed an attitude of leniency toward all those who after arrest exhibited a willingness to register and extended the locus penitentiæ as far as possible, believing that the purpose of the law was to secure a full registration rather than full jails.'"
Ted handed the clipping to Buck, who, after looking it over carefully, handed it to Al Peters, remarking:
"Another lie nailed. I don't mean that you did the lyin', Jenkins. I reckon it was the Germans."
The clipping passed from Peters to Jones and then to Jenkins, each holding it near the fire and reading in silence. Jenkins studied it carefully and then, without comment, passed it to James, who, after hardly a glance at the printed lines, tore up the clipping and threw it into the fire.
"What good will that do you?" asked Peters scornfully.
"Nothin' but newspaper lies to fool runaways like us out of their hidin' places," said James bitterly.
Ted, who regarded the clipping as of great value and considered it his property, turned with an outraged face to Buck, who chose to take no notice of an incident which appeared to him unimportant.
"Well, fellows," he said in conclusion, "I've put you on notice, and now all I've got to do is to get ready."
"So you've gone back on us," repeated James, his voice trembling with anger, "and you'll go out and put the sheriff on our trail?"
"I didn't say that. I don't expect to hunt up the sheriff. I'll be satisfied if he don't hunt me up. But if he asks me straight up and down, I don't engage to do any lyin'."