“What do you mean by putting us scouts in a bad hole, Ralph?” asked Hugh, quickly, for what the other boy had said startled him.

Ralph glanced hurriedly about, as though to make absolutely certain that no eavesdroppers were near by to overhear what he said. Then he drew closer to Hugh and assumed a most mysterious manner that could not help having an effect upon the surprised scout chief.

“Oh! they’re as mad as hops, let me tell you, Hugh,” Ralph commenced.

“Of course you mean, Ralph, those fellows who were hurt when we put the lid tight on Oakvale, and stopped their sneaky business, whatever it may have been?”

“Yes, and they’ve got together and mean to fight back, that’s how it stands now, Hugh,” he was told.
81

“We knew they had employed lawyers and were meaning to do everything they could to get the mayor’s acts called unconstitutional,” Hugh remarked.

“Oh! they’ve made up their minds, I guess,” Ralph continued hastily, “that when it comes to a show-down of law they haven’t got a chance to win out. Hugh, let me tell you again some of that bunch are the most desperate men going. Why, nobody would ever have believed we had such monsters here in little old Oakvale.”

“Whew! you’re going pretty strong when you use a word like that, Ralph!”

“They deserve it every time, I tell you,” persisted the other. “What else would you call men who even scheme to have a store in this town robbed, and then fix it so that marked bills or pieces of jewelry will be found in the pockets of certain scouts, you among the number?”

Hugh stared hard at Ralph as though he could hardly believe his ears.

“You haven’t been dreaming that, have you, Ralph?” he finally asked, as he took hold of the other’s sleeve and drew him around so that he could look straight into Ralph’s eyes, which, however, did not waver before his gaze.
82

“Not much I haven’t, Hugh,” he was told like a flash. “I give you my word of honor I heard that very scheme spoken of by three of the leading spirits in this fight against a clean town—Gaffney, who used to run that poolroom; Slimmons, the retired boxer, who used to be athletic trainer at the schools before somehow he took to drinking so heavy they had to drop him (and he’s hung around Gaffney’s place ever since trying to pick up some sort of living giving boxing lessons, etc.). There was a third man present, but he doesn’t really live in town. I suspect he’s been interested on the quiet in dodging the law here by supplying shady resorts with booze, and is losing money as long as they stay shut up.”

“Where did all this take place, tell me, Ralph?”
83

“Listen then, Hugh. I happened to be coming across lots down at the bowling alley corner when I saw those three men dodge into the place. You know it’s been closed to play ever since they found things were going on there that had no business in Oakvale. Well, I thought there was something queer about the way those three men acted before they dodged in, and my old sense of investigation at once began to urge me to take a peek and see what they might be up to. If any sort of game was going on, the police ought to know, you understand, Hugh?”

“Yes, and you were acting within your rights as a member of the regular police force, in figuring on doing so,” the other assured him.

Ralph smiled grimly as though pleased to receive that reassurance from the one in whom he placed unlimited confidence.

“Well, it was as easy as falling off a log for me to discover a window that I could crawl through,” Ralph went on to say, “and nobody saw me do it either. I haven’t been watching mink, otter, and foxes pull off their sly tricks without learning a thing or two. So once I got inside the old building it wasn’t much of a job to find where they were sitting, jabbering away like everything, in low voices, as if they didn’t want to be heard outside.
84

“Hugh, I couldn’t begin to repeat what I heard. All of them were excited, and in dead earnest, too. Each one had suggestions to make that sometimes made my blood run cold. Their well-paying business has been closed up, you see, and that’s what makes them so bent on striking a blow to end this silly ‘racket,’ as they contemptuously call the uplift movement.

“And, Hugh, just as I said in the beginning, they’re actually planning to have a robbery committed, and manage it so that some of the stuff that’s taken will be found on a number of the scouts. Just how this is to be done they hadn’t fully settled; but it’s all going to be fixed this very night, so that before another forty-eight hours have passed the dirty game can be worked. Why, I never dreamed so dreadful a thing would come slap up against us scouts. They want the people of Oakvale to suspect us of being common, every-day thieves.”

“Don’t worry, Ralph,” said Hugh, firmly. “I don’t believe the game could have been carried out successfully at any time, even if none of us so much as suspected a thing. Now that you’ve warned us, why, it’s bound to fall flat. Mayor Strunk and the women of this town know the scouts too well to ever believe they’d disgrace their uniforms and honor badges by stealing.”
85

“Do you know, Hugh, while I lay there straining my ears like everything so’s not to lose much of what those plotters said, I was thinking what a bully thing it would be if the scouts could turn the tables on ’em.”

“You mean, Ralph, fix things so the fellows who actually did the robbery would be nabbed in the act—with the goods on—before they found a chance to deposit any of the plunder in the pockets of the scouts, or at their homes, where it would be found when a search started?”

“That’s what I had in mind,” confessed the other, eagerly.