s head. "But perhaps Bud may set us right.
I can see from the look on his face that he has a brilliant idea."

"Oh, shucks! I don't know how brilliant it is," the party mentioned
hastened to remark, "but you're welcome to my thought. Suppose there
happened to be some desperate men hiding up here in these woods, say
counterfeiters, for instance? I've heard that such fellows always
try to pick a lonely place to do their work in. Well, the Government
always sends out smart men belonging to the Secret Service to round
these chaps up. I was speculating on whether those two strangers
Ralph saw mightn't be detectives. I reckon they looked as if they
wanted to detect, all right; and let me tell you, p'raps we're
under the ban of suspicion right now."

Bud ended his remarks in a rather awed voice, but neither of the others
seemed to be at all worried. Indeed, Hugh chuckled as though amused.

"It may be that you've guessed the right answer, Bud," he said, "but
all the same I don't believe it. There's something deeper about
those men than that. And unless I miss my guess, we'll find in the
end, if we learn anything at all, that they've got some sort of
connection with that queer flash and crash that gave us such a scare
earlier in the night."

Bud stared at Hugh on hearing this.

"Whee! do you really think so, Hugh?" he muttered, as though trying
to grasp what all this might stand for, and yet hardly able to
comprehend its full significance.

After all their talk, however, they were really no nearer a solution
of the matter in the end than when they started to discuss it. Hugh
said they would have to wait and see what turned up next, before
settling on any one explanation and both the other scouts agreed
with him.

So they finally prepared to lie down and get what sleep was possible,
which under the conditions could hardly be expected to amount to a
great deal.

Their blankets were folded in such fashion as to give them the best
results. This wrinkle they had learned in the field of practical
experience, than which there is no better guide. Theory is all very
well, but the book-taught scout has a great many ideas to change
when he gets out into the open, with the stars shining down on him
from the blue vault of heaven and the voices of Nature surrounding
him on every side, instead of the bare ceiling and walls of his
bedroom at home.

That night certainly dragged along fearfully. Every now and then one
of