The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound Part 5

"How about the grub question, Paul?" demanded Bobolink.

"Every fellow who is going will have to provide a certain amount of food to be carried along with his blanket, gun, clothes bag, and camera. All that can be arranged when we meet to-morrow afternoon. In the meantime, I'm going to appoint Bobolink and Jack as a committee of two to spend what money we can spare in purchasing certain groceries such as coffee, sugar, hams, potatoes, and other things to be listed later."

Bobolink grinned happily on hearing that.

"See how pleased it makes him," jeered Tom Betts. "When you put Bobolink on the committee that looks after the grub, Paul, you hit him close to where he lives. One thing sure, we'll have plenty to eat along with us, for Bobolink never underrates the eating capacity of himself or his chums."

"You can trust me for that," remarked the one referred to, "because I was really hungry once in my life, and I've never gotten over the terrible feeling. Yes, there is going to be a full dinner pail in Camp Garrity, let me tell you!"

"Camp Garrity sounds good to me!" exclaimed Sandy Griggs.

"Let it go down in the annals of Stanhope Troop at that!" cried another scout.

"We could hardly call it by any other name, after the owner has been so good as to place it at our disposal," said Paul, himself well pleased at the idea.

Bobolink was about to say something more when, without warning, there came a sudden crash accompanied by the jingling of broken gla.s.s. One of the windows fell in as though some hard object had struck it. The startled scouts, looking up, saw the arm and face of a boy thrust part way through the aperture, showing that he must have slipped and broken the window while trying to spy upon the meeting.

CHAPTER VI

A GLOOMY PROSPECT FOR JUD

"It's Jud Mabley!" exclaimed one of the scouts, instantly recognizing the face of the unlucky youth who had fallen part way through the window.

Jud was a boy of bad habits. He had applied to the scouts for membership, but had not been admitted on account of his unsavory reputation. Smarting under this sting Jud had turned to Hank Lawson and his crowd for sympathy, and was known to be hand-in-glove with those young rowdies.

"He's been spying on us, that's what!" cried Bobolink, indignantly.

"And learning our plans, like as not!" added Tom Betts.

"He ought to be caught and ridden on a rail!" exclaimed a third member of the troop, filled with anger.

"I'd say duck him in the river after cutting a hole in the ice!"

called out another boy, furiously.

"Huh! first ketch your rabbit before you start cookin' him!" laughed Jud in a jeering fashion, as he waved them a mocking adieu through the broken window, and then vanished from view.

"After him, fellows!" shouted the impetuous Bobolink, and there was a hasty rush for the door, the boys s.n.a.t.c.hing up their hats as they ran.

Paul was with the rest, not that he cared particularly about catching the eavesdropper, but he wanted to be on hand in case the rest of the scouts overtook Jud; for Paul held the reputation of the troop dear, and would not have the scouts sully their honor by a mean act.

The boys poured out of the meeting-place in a stream. The bright moon showed them a running figure which they judged must of course be Jud; so away they sprang in hot pursuit.

Somehow, it struck them that Jud was not running as swiftly as might be expected, for he had often proved himself a speedy contestant on the cinder path. He seemed to wabble more or less, and looked back over his shoulder many times.

Bobolink suspected there might be some sort of trick connected with this action on the part of the other, for Jud was known to be a schemer.

"Jack, he may be drawing us into a trap of some sort, don't you think?" he managed to gasp as he ran at the side of the other.

Apparently Jack, too, had noticed the queer actions of the fugitive.

He had seen a mother rabbit pretend to be lame when seeking to draw enemies away from the place where her young ones lay hidden; yes, and a partridge often did the same thing, as he well knew.

"I was noticing that, Bobolink," he told the other, "but it strikes me Jud must have been hurt somehow when he crashed through that window."

"You mean he feels more or less weak, do you?"

"Something like that," came the reply.

"Well, we're coming up on him like fun, anyway, no matter what the cause may be!" Bobolink declared, and then found it necessary to stop talking if he wanted to keep in the van with several of the swiftest runners among the scouts.

It was true that they were rapidly overtaking Jud, who ran in a strange zigzag fashion like one who was dizzy. He kept up until the leaders among his pursuers came alongside; then he stopped short, and, panting for breath, squared off, striking viciously at them.

Jack and two other scouts closed in on him, regardless of blows, and Jud was made a prisoner. He ceased struggling when he found it could avail him nothing, but glared at his captors as an Indian warrior might have done.

"Huh! think you're smart, don't you, overhaulin' me so easy," he told them disdainfully. "But if I hadn't been knocked dizzy when I fell you never would a got me. Now what're you meanin' to do about it? Ain't a feller got a right to walk the public streets of this here town without bein' grabbed by a pack of cowards in soldier suits, and treated rough-house way?"

"That doesn't go with us, Jud Mabley," said Bobolink, indignantly.

"You were playing the spy on us, you know it, trying to listen to all we were saying."

"So as to tell that Lawson crowd, and get them to start some mean trick on us in the bargain," added Tom Betts.

"O-ho! ain't a feller a right to stop alongside of a church to strike a match for his pipe?" jeered the prisoner, defiantly. "How was I to know your crowd was inside there? The streets are free to any one, man, woman or boy, I take it."

"How about the broken window, Jud?" demanded Bobolink, triumphantly.

"Yes! did you smash that pane of gla.s.s when you threw your match away, Jud," asked another boy, with a laugh.

"He was caught in the act, fellows," a.s.serted Frank Savage, "and the next question with us is what ought we to do to punish a sneak and a spy?"

"I said it before--ride him on a rail around town so people can see how scouts stand up for their own rights!" came a voice from the group of excited boys.

"Oh! that would be letting him off too easy," Tom Betts affirmed.

"'Twould serve him just about right if we ducked him a few times in the river."

"All we need is an axe to cut a hole through the ice," another lad went on to say, showing that the suggestion rather caught his fancy as the appropriate thing to do--making the punishment fit the crime, as it were.

"Keep it goin'," sneered the defiant Jud, not showing any signs of quailing under this bombardment. "Try and think up a few more pleasant things to do to me. If you reckon you c'n make me show the white feather you've got another guess comin', I want you to know. I'm true grit, I am!"

"You may be singing out of the other side of your mouth, Jud Mabley, before we're through with you," threatened Curly Baxter.

"Mebbe now you might think to get a hemp rope and try hangin' me,"

laughed the prisoner in an offensive manner. "That's what they do to spies, you know, in the army. Yes, and I know of a beauty of a limb that stands straight out from the body of the tree 'bout ten feet from the ground. Shall I tell you where it lies?"

This sort of defiant talk was causing more of the scouts to become angry. It seemed to them like adding insult to injury. Here this fellow had spied upon their meeting, possibly learned all about the plans they were forming for the midwinter holidays, and then finally had the misfortune to fall and smash one of the window panes, which would, of course, have to be made good by the scouts, as they were under heavy obligations to the trustees of the church for favors received.