rascals.

"We don't stand for much nonsense from outsiders, do we fellers?" he
appealed to the other five. "Once before on this trip some bad men
thought to get fresh with the Silver Fox Patrol. You all know what
happened to Charley Barnes, the leader of that bunch of yeggs that broke
into the bank. Didn't we make the capture though, and astonish Sheriff
Green? And ain't we going to get ever so much money for recovering the
stolen stuff? Well, that's what's going to happen to those husky chaps
if they get too gay with us. They'd better go slow. If they can read,
they'll see we're marked 'dangerous, handle with care!'"

"Yes," said Giraffe, "we'll just have to get busy, and hand these
sillies over to the head game warden. They're trying to interfere with
our having the time of our lives up here in Maine; and we don't stand
for anything like that."

None of them felt like getting back to their blankets in a hurry, after
all that scare; so they just sat there around the fire, some of them
with the blankets thrown over their shoulders, and compared notes all
along the line; for what the guides had just told concerning the scheme
of the unprincipled poachers filled the scouts with both indignation and
anger.

And more than one of them resolved that when his time came to watch, he
would make sure to keep a loaded gun close to his hand, to be used to
give the prowlers the fright of their lives.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHEN EVEN A COMPASS FAILED THEM.

"What would you do, Bumpus," said Step Hen, after a while, "if you
couldn't find a creek to wade in, with the fire all around you?"

"Well, d'ye know, I was just athinkin' about that same thing," replied
the fat scout, who had thrown a blanket around him, and not bothered
dressing; and as he sat there on a log he looked somewhat like a lazy
Indian.

"I hope you came to some conclusion," observed Giraffe; "because, if we
happen to run across a conflagration to-morrow, when we're out hunting,
it'll be some comfort to me to know, when I'm spinning along, that
you're snug and safe behind, and not being devoured by the flames."

"Well, the only thing I could think of," Bumpus went on, soberly;
"seeing that a feller can't sprout wings right away when he needs the
same; nor hatch up an aeroplane to carry him out of the danger zone--the
only thing for me to do would be to hunt around for a woodchuck's hole,
and push in, feet first."

There was a laugh at that remark, which