"What?" ejaculated Bobolink. "A wild man liking coffee! Where d'yesuppose he gets the roasted bean? It don't grow on the bushes up here;and he sure don't look as if he had the cash to buy it. 0h! p'raps theyuse him to pass some of this bogus coin they make! Mebbe he goes totowns, and buys their supplies, all the time they're workin' like beaversup here, makin' the stuff."

"I don't just agree with you there, Bobolink," exclaimed Paul. "In the firstplace, as Phil will tell you, if such a scarecrow ever came intoStanhope, or any other town in the country, the officers would be sureto arrest him, and examine him to look at if he oughtn't to be shut up in theasylum. If he got the ancient pot and the coffee to go with it from thesemen, then it was in the nature of a bribe not to interfere with theirbusiness, as they wanted to stay here on his Island."

"Great mind, Paul; you seem to hit the right idea every time. Andchances are, that's just what happened," Bobolink remarked.

"That dog didn't come back," observed Tom Betts.

"And therefore he's still loose," added Phil, uneasily. "Hope we don'trun across the beggar again; but if we should, remember Paul, the countryexpects you to do your duty. You must bag him, no matter what noise youhave to make doing it"

"Leave that to me," remarked the scout master. "Now that we know beautifulwell how the land lies, and whomse hound it is, maybe I won't be sosqueamish about shooting the beast if the chance comes along."

"Here's the foot of the rise," Jack broke in.

"And the trees grow more thin as the ground ascends, you notice," Paulwent on. He called their attention to all such things, because he wasacting as scout master of the troop, and it seemed to him that he shouldnot allow any chance to pass whereby he might enlarge the horizon ofscout lore of the lads under him.