Brent said, “Well, it’s a kind of a dim communication. Only two scouts and our trusty leader know about it. They have kept their lips sealed. I wish now, by the light of this camp-fire, to ask you one and all, if you are ready to undertake an enterprise that is fraught with mortal peril?”
“Is it fraught with anything to eat?” Will Dawson wanted to know.
“Isn’t mortal peril good enough for you?” Pee-wee shouted.
Gee whiz, some fellows are never satisfied.
Brent said, “Comrades, when I put an end to the career of that miserable scarecrow and, with a single stroke, made millions of crows happy, I found in the pocket of his frock-coat a mysterious paper. More than that, I know who that frock-coat belonged to before he had it. It belonged to Deacon Snookbeck of Barrow’s Homestead! Ha, ha,—and a couple of he, he’s!”
“Read the paper!” they all began shouting,
He said, “Silence. While traveling with Scout Harris, and patrol leader Blakeley, I met a stranger who told us that several years ago Deacon Snookbeck had two mysterious visitors in his house. Whether this paper that I am about to read to you has any connection with those strangers, I cannot say. I am not skilled in high grade mysteries, being only a plain, ordinary burglar and thug——”
“You larcenied!” Pee-wee shouted.
Brent put his hand on his forehead and said, awful funny, “Don’t remind me of my crimes.”
“Read the paper,” Rossie Bent said.