In doing this he came in contact with the two scouts, and their eyes met. Lige stared Hugh straight in the face, and what seemed to be a smile of defiance came across his dark countenance. It was as though he had heard what had happened to Whistling Smith, and had been assured that his identity was known to the scouts who had appeared on the scene while he and his pals were defying the mayor by wrecking his well-kept lawn and shrubbery.
Billy turned and looked at his chum after Lige had gone into the store.
“What do you think of that now, Hugh?” he asked. “Did you ever see a fellow throw down the gauntlet like he did? Dares us to accuse him, and wants to know how we could prove it! For three cents I’d like to ask you to take the challenge up. We could give him a heap of trouble, I reckon. And everybody believes that it was his gang that made the ruin at the mayor’s place, even if nothing’s been done about it.”
Hugh, however, shook his head in the negative.
“Things are going along too well right now, Billy, to change them,” he said. “We might be able to prove what we claimed, and then again, how do we know? All we’ve got to go on is the word of Whistling Smith, and he would have to turn informer. Better let it drop and wait to see how things turn out. Lige and his crowd builded better than they knew when they paid that visit to the mayor’s place. It was the beginning of the end.”
Billy did not seem to be wholly convinced, for he shook his head and frowned as he stood there on the outskirts of the crowd.
“Well, if you knew Lige as well as I do, Hugh, you’d understand that such a little thing as that isn’t going to faze him any. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he’s getting up some other prank right now and means to spring it on the town some dark night. The snake is scotched, not killed. The more you stir up a fellow like him the worse you make things.”
“Wait and see, Billy; don’t be in so much of a hurry,” the other scout replied. “When I worked side by side with Lige putting out that fire in his aunt’s house, I saw him at his best. And when he shook hands with me and as much as admitted that scouts _could_ be halfway decent, I saw something in his eyes that’s been haunting me ever since. And I say once more, lots of queer things have happened in this world and will again. One of them may be seeing that same Lige Corbley in the khaki uniform of a scout some fine day.”