bad were it not for the close proximity of that band of
twelve, armed, desperate, escaped murderers. Their attitude towards
the hunters, together with scraps of conversation they had uttered, had
bred in Charley's active mind a theory for their actions and object, a
theory involving a crime so vile and atrocious as to stagger belief.

"I'll be getting flighty if I keep brooding on this thing by myself
much longer," Charley mused. "I am beginning to fear my own judgment
is wrong. I'll confide it all to someone else to-morrow and see if
their opinion agrees with mine." With little reflection, he decided on
Walter as the fittest one to tell. This resolve lifted a burden from
his mind and he soon drifted off into healthy slumber.

"I've got something I want to talk over with you, Walt," he found a
chance to whisper while breakfast was cooking next morning. "Let's get
away somewhere where the captain and Chris will not hear us," he
cautioned.

Their chance came soon after breakfast while Chris was cleaning up the
things and the captain was engaged in sorting out and packing away the
plumes in the tin boxes they had brought with them.

The two boys strolled off slowly and carelessly together, but did not
stop until they had reached the grassy knoll by the river.

"Hurry up, tell me what it is, you have got me half wild with
curiosity," cried Walter, flinging himself at full length upon the turf.

Charley smiled as he pointed at a thin wisp of smoke rising from the
convicts' camp. "It is about our neighbors," he said.

"Have you learned anything new?" Walter demanded eagerly.

"No, but I've been putting two and two together concerning them again
and again until I'm uncertain whether I've got the proper answer or
have got everything distorted by long brooding over them. I want to
know what the conclusion would be to a mind that is fresh."

"Good," said Walter, gleefully, "sounds just like a lawyer, go ahead,
I'll be the judge."

"First," said Charley, gravely, "we can admit as an undisputed fact,
that those fellows over there were either close behind or ahead of us
at least part of the way here."

Walter nodded assent, too interested to interrupt.

"From the closeness with which they tally to that newspaper account,
even down to the renegade Indian, we are, I think, justified in
assuming that they are the escaped convicts."

"Their faces would convict them without any evidence," Walter declared.

Charley