hen you asked him how he knew that."

"There's no question about Dock's being the guilty one," asserted Tom.
"He gave himself away the worst kind then. The only thing we have to do
is to try and get the truth from him. Sooner or later it's got to be
found out."

"Yes," continued Carl, dejectedly, "but if he's handed that paper over
to Mr. Culpepper in the meantime, even if we could prove that Dock took
it what good will that do? Once that paper is torn up, we could recover
nothing."

"But I'm sure he hasn't made his bargain with old Amasa yet," Tom
ventured.

"Why do you believe that?" asked the other, eagerly.

"You heard what he said about the meanness of his employer, didn't
you?" was what Tom replied. "Well, it proves that although Dock sounded
Mr. Culpepper about being in a position to give him the paper they
haven't arrived at any satisfactory conclusion."

"You mean Dock wants more than Amasa is willing to pay, is that it,
Tom?"

"It looks that way to me," the other boy assented; "and that sort of
deadlock may keep on indefinitely. You see, Dock is half afraid to
carry the deal through, and will keep holding off. Perhaps he may
even have put so high a price on his find, that every once in a
while they'll lock horns and call it a draw."

"I hope you've hit on the right solution," sighed Carl; "if it didn't
do anything else it would give us a chance to think up some other
scheme for getting the truth out of Dock."

"Leave it to me, Carl; sooner or later we'll find a way to beat him at
his own game. If he's got that paper hidden away somewhere we may
discover his secret by following him. There are other ways too. It's
going to come out all right in the end, you take my word for it!"

CHAPTER V

THE BLACK BEAR PATROL

It was a lively scene in the room under the church when the meeting was
called to order by Mr. Witherspoon, the civil engineer and surveyor. A
dozen boys were on hand, several having come from curiosity, and
meaning to join the scouts later on if they saw reason to believe it
would amount to anything.

Besides the boys there were present Judge Stone, his friend the
hermit-naturalist, Larry Henderson, and two fathers, who had dropped
around to learn whether this new-fangled movement for the rising
generation meant that the boys were to be secretly trained for
soldiers, as so many people believed.

Robert Witherspoon having once been a scout master knew how to manage a
meeting