don't seem to
agree with the rest of us when we call these Italians anarchists."

"Because there hasn't been a solitary thing to prove it. We pathfinders
must always discover some trace of the trail, or else we'd go astray.
And I've owned up that I'm more than half inclined to believe these
people are not the bad lot you'd make out."

"But they've got our chum a prisoner," said Red.

"Looks that way," assented Elmer, cheerfully.

"And honest men would never do a thing like that," declared Red.

"Oh, wouldn't they?" replied the other. "Perhaps now the shoe might be
on the other foot."

"Eh?"

"And perhaps these honest people might suspect that you three fellows in
uniform represented the great United States army about to surround
them, and make them prisoners because they had been occupying private
property here at Munsey's mill."

The scouts looked at one another, astonished. Here was a theory then
which had never appealed to them before.

"Well, I declare!" gasped Red.

"Don't it just beat the Dutch how he gets on to all these things?" said
Lil Artha.

"But, Elmer, why take poor Nat a prisoner, bottle him up so he couldn't
call for help, fetch him to this old shack, and finally carry him off
when they light out!"

It was Matty who asked this question. Elmer smiled and shook his head.

"I can figure out a lot of things," he said, "just as I can read Indian
writing; but please don't expect me to tell you what people _think_. I
only know that these Italians were surely frightened at the sudden
appearance of three fellows in khaki, and that they probably took them
for soldiers. They must have had some idea in view when they captured
Nat, and hustled him to this shack. Perhaps they only meant to hide here
until the rest of us had gone."

"And they got more scared when you sounded that bugle, I reckon,"
remarked Lil Artha.

"Yes, and then the coming of another bunch of six scouts may have made
them believe the worst was about to happen," Elmer continued.

"Say, I thought I heard low voices when I was just going to peep in that
window there, and the bugle called me back to duty," Landy spoke up.

"Yes," Elmer added; "and it may be the coming of Landy just finished
their panic. After he went away they must have vamosed the ranch in a
hurry."

"Well, all this is mighty interesting, sure," declared Red, with an
appreciative nod, "but it ain't bringing us any closer to finding our
chum Nat."

"Yes, what'