"It would, really, Jumbo?" inquired Andy Bowles, deeply interested.

"It sho' would fer sartain shuh, Ma.s.sa Bowles."

"Pshaw, that's nothing," scoffed Tubby, with a wink at the others. The fun-loving youth scented a joke. "My uncle had a gun that once killed a deer at three miles."

"At free miles, Ma.s.sa Hopkins?"

"Yes. It sounds incredible I know, but they had the state surveyor measure off the ground and sure enough it was three miles."

"Um-ho!" exclaimed Jumbo, blinking at the fire, "dat's a wun'ful gun shoh 'nuff. But mah uncle's gun hed it beat."

"Impossible, Jumbo!" exclaimed the major.

"Yas, sah, it deed. Mah uncle's gun done cahhey so fah dat mah uncle he done hed ter put salt on his bullets befo' he fahed dem."

"Put salt on his bullets before he fired them, Jumbo! What on earth for?"

demanded Rob while the others bent forward interestedly.

"Jes' becos of de distance at which dat rifle killed," explained Jumbo.

"Yo' see, and especially in warm weather, dat salt was needed, 'cos it took mah uncle such a time te git to it after he done kill it dat if those bullets weren't salted the game would hev spoiled. Yes, sah, da's a fac', majah."

A dead silence fell over the camp at the conclusion of this interesting narrative. You could have heard a pin drop. At last the major said, in a solemn voice:

"Jumbo, I fear you are an exaggerator."

"Ah specs' ah is, majah. I specs' ah is, but you know dat zaggerators is bo'n and not made, lak potes."

Then the laughter broke loose. The hillside echoed with it, and Jumbo, who deemed that he had been called a most complimentary term by the major, gazed from one to the other in a highly puzzled way.

"Reminds me of old Uncle Hank who keeps a grocery store near my uncle's farm up in Vermont," put in Hiram. "One night in the store they were talking about potato bugs. One old fellow said he had seen twenty potato bugs on one stalk.

""Pshaw!' said an old man named Abner Deene, 'that's nothing. Why, up in my potato patch they've eaten everything up and now when I go outdoors I kin see 'em sitting around the lot, on trees and fences, waitin' fer me ter plant over ag'in.'

"Then it came the turn of an old fellow named Cyrus Harper. Cyrus laughed at Abner.

"'Sittin' roun' on fences,' he sniffed, 'that's nuffin'. Nuffin' at all.

Why whar I come from the potato bugs come right into the kitchen, open the oven doors and yank the red hot baking potatoes out of the stove.'

"My uncle hadn't said a thing all this time, but now he struck in.

"'Gentlemen,' he said, 'all these potato-bug stories don't begin to compare with the breed they had down near Brattleboro, where I come from.

Down there I used to clerk in Si Toner's grocery and general store. Well, the potato bugs used to come into the store in the spring and look over Si's books to see who'd been buying potato seed.'"

"Funny thing your uncle never met the wonderful rifle shot, Philander Potts," said the professor musingly, after the laughter over Hiram's yarn had subsided.

"Philander Potts," exclaimed the boys, "never heard of him."

"Too bad," said the professor musingly, "he was the best shot in the world, too, I guess. Why, once he undertook to fire at a rubber target 2,000 times in two minutes. The way he did it was this. He had a repeating rifle and kept firing as fast as he could at the india-rubber target. The bullets would bounce off and he caught them in the muzzle of his rifle as they flew back and fired them over again."

"But what about the bullets that were coming out? Didn't they collide with the ones coming back?" asked Andy Bowles in all seriousness.

"No," said the professor gravely, "you see, Philander was so swift in his movements that he was able to fire and catch alternately."

"I'll have to practice that," laughed Tubby.

Soon after the narration of this surprising anecdote, the major looked at his watch.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "nine o'clock. Time for lights out. Andy, sound 'Taps' and we'll post the sentries for the night."

Tubby and Hiram were selected for the first watch. The major and young Andy were to stand the second vigil while the third period of sentry duty fell to Merritt and Rob. It seemed to the latter that they had not been asleep half an hour when the major entered their tepee and aroused them for their tour of duty. He reported all quiet, and a clear moonlight night.

Hastily throwing on their uniforms the Boy Scouts turned out. For some time they paced their posts steadfastly without anything occurring to mar the stillness of the night. The moon shone down brightly, silvering the surface of the lake which could be glimpsed through the dark trees.

Suddenly Rob, who had reached the limit of his post, which was not far from where the canoes had been hauled up, was startled by a slight sound.

It ceased almost instantly, but presently it occurred again.

Cautiously the boy crept through the forest toward the water's edge. He took every advantage of his scout training and carefully avoided treading on twigs or anything that might cause a sound of his approach to be made manifest.

Gliding from tree trunk to tree trunk he soon arrived at the spot in which the canoes had been dragged ash.o.r.e. At the same instant he became aware of several dark figures moving about among them. Suddenly, right behind him, a twig snapped. In the stillness it sounded as loud as the report of a pistol. Rob wheeled round swiftly, but not before a figure leaped toward him from behind a tree trunk. Before Rob could raise a hand in self-defense another form sprang at him.

The lad tried to cry out and discharge his rifle, but before he could accomplish either act he was felled by some heavy instrument, and a gag thrust into his mouth. The next instant, bound and incapable of uttering a sound, he was borne swiftly toward the canoes.

CHAPTER XII.

CAPTURED.

But silently as the attack upon Rob had been made, it had not taken place without causing some disturbance. Moreover, the sharp crack of the snapping twig which had attracted Rob's attention to his trailers, had also reached Merritt's sharp ears. In the silence of the night-enwrapped forest sounds carry far.

Merritt was all attention in a flash. The snap of the twig might have been caused by some prying animal or----

"Gee whiz! That's the scuffling of feet!" exclaimed the young sentry the next moment as the sounds of the tussle came to him.

His first act was to fire a shot. It should have been aimed in the air, but in his excitement Merritt fired low. The bullet whizzed in the direction of the camp, struck a tin kettle which was piled up with a number of other tin utensils, and brought the whole pile down with a crash. Now Jumbo's chosen sleeping place was right behind this barricade of tin hardware. When it fell it came crashing about the colored man in an ear-splitting avalanche. Jumbo leaped to his feet with a howl. He was attired in his shirt, trousers and shoes, not having bothered to remove these when he retired.

"Fo' de lan's sake what dat gum gophulous racket?" he yelled. In a flash his long legs began to move.

"Ah'll bet a pint uv peanuts dat's Injuns!" he shouted as he sped along, "mah goodness, ah wish ah had mah uncle's gun. But as ah ain't ah's jes'

a gwine te trus' ter mah laigs."

Jumbo, in great leaps and strides, arrived at the lake-side in a few instants. In the meantime, the camp behind him was in an uproar of excitement over the midnight alarm.

The negro had already reached the waterside before he felt himself knocked flat by a heavy blow on the head. Now Jumbo's head, like all negroes', was about as hard as a bit of adamant. But the cowardly fellow deemed it better to lie perfectly still when he was knocked flat.

Presently he felt himself being picked up and thrown into something that the next instant began to move off. He realized in a flash that he was lying in the bottom of one of the canoes.

"Hailp! Hailp!" he began to yell, but was silent instantly as a harsh voice breathed in his ear: