n suppose you do, Colon."

"Bristles," continued the other, confidently, "would hunch his shoulders
this way, as he nearly always does, and then he'd say: whatever you think
is the right caper, Fred, count me in. I'm ready to sneeze every time
you take snuff!' That's the way Bristles would talk, mark my words."

Fred laughed. He could not help feeling flattered at such an evidence of
confidence on the part of these two chums; yet he feigned to disagree
with Colon.

"I don't know about that, Colon, Bristles has a mind of his own, and
sometimes it takes a lot of argument to convince him. You've got to
batter down his walls, and knock all the props out from under him before
he'll throw up the white flag. If I get half a chance to run across lots
to-night, I'll try to see him. He ought to be put wise to what's going
on.

"That's only fair, Fred, because he was there when we struck that cave.
And if I remember aright, Bristles was the first to discover about Corny
having been the one who used that cooking fire."

"Don't pass the word around, Colon, mind," cautioned Fred.

"You didn't need to say that, my boy," remarked the other, with a vein of
reproach in his voice, "because you ought to know I'm not one of the
blabbing kind. I c'n keep a secret better'n anybody in our class. They
might pump me forever and never learn a thing."

"When was it you saw Corny?" Fred asked, as though desirous of obtaining
the fullest information possible.

"Why, just a little while ago," Colon confided. "Fact is, my first
thought was to look you up, and tell you. I went to your house first,
because your hours are a heap shorter than the regular scholars, at
school, and they said you'd gone off an hour before. And then, well, I
kind of guessed Flo Temple would be starting for home about this time,
and it might be you'd happen along to carry her hooks, as you always used
to. And I was right," with a sly glance at the little packet Fred had at
that very moment under his left arm.

"Oh that's all right, Colon," he remarked, laughingly; "just from force
of habit, you know. Flo kind of expects me to drop around, and seems
sort of disappointed when anything keeps me away. That's the way we
spoil our girl friends, you see. But let's speak of serious things. I
don't see that we're called on to inform about Corny, with only
circumstantial evidence against him. If there did happen to be another
robbery while we knew he was close