il Artha;
"but I'm going to show you where you're away off your base. Guess I've
got eyes, and know a human from a white-faced heifer. Watch my smoke,
that's all."

With that the indignant scout handed his gun to Chatz, and stepping
over to the fire picked up the half-burned brand which he had mentioned
before. This Lil Artha whirled briskly around his head several times
until he had it crackling and taking fire afresh, so that it promised
to make a very fair torch, if used for only a brief time.

Elmer made no objections to the programme. Indeed, he was deeply
interested in the outcome, whatever it might prove to be.

After having made sure of sufficient light, Lil Artha boldly strode
directly toward the spot he had indicated as the scene of the
near-tragedy.

"Go slow, Lil Artha," warned cautious Landy; "he might be laying for
you there. Keep him covered, Chatz, with the gun, won't you?"

"Oh! give us a rest, Landy; didn't I tell you he hoofed it like fun
after that shot gave him a scare? Who's afraid?"

With that Lil Artha reached the bushes indicated, and the others were
close on his heels, every fellow eager to find out whether what he had
told them was in fact true, or if the apparition had only been a
figment of Lil Artha's imagination, the tail-end, as it were, of a
stirring dream.

Bending down, the long-legged scout began to scan the ground. His
discoveries started almost immediately, as his excited words announced:

"Here's where he pushed back the brush, as you c'n see for yourselves.
Yes, and there's aplenty of footprints besides. Looky where he knelt
down, because here's the mark of his knees as plain as anything. Now
what do you say, Toby Jones? Is the laugh on me, after all?"

Toby had to confess that it did not look that way.

"Oh! I'm ready to own up you did see a man snooping around our camp,
Lil Artha," he confessed, frankly; "and when you let fly with that load
he lit out like all possessed. Elmer, of course the chances are it was
_that man_, don't you think?"

"We know of no other in this region," said the patrol leader. "He must
have discovered our fire, and was creeping up when our vigilant comrade
saw him, meaning to steal part of our food supply. We happen to know
they're short of grub, and now that the country is being roused against
them this man is beginning to be more or less afraid to venture out of
the swamp to secure another lot of fowls, or anything else along