"Pedro," he said, "you'll never make a Scout. You're a good bandit and a good secretary, but this Scout business is too much for you. I saw their tracks; that's what." "In the alley?" He nodded. "Come on and I'll show you." We hurried down to Center Street and turned into the alley back of the stores. The ground in the alley was hard and didn't show any tracks except wagon ruts. Bill looked up and down the alley to make sure that nobody was watching; then tiptoed over to one side, and lifted up a big piece of wrapping paper, which lay there as if it had been blown out of the store. Under the paper there was the same kind of footprint which we had followed from Plunkett's woods the day before. There was no doubt about it. The man with a bandaged foot must have been in the alley back of the store which had been robbed. Bill was the proudest fellow you ever saw over that footprint. When I had finished looking at it he put the paper back again and we went out into the street. "What do you think of that?" said he. "I guess Skinny ain't the whole thing--on Sundays." "Does the marshal know?" "I haven't told a soul except you, Pedro. I am saving it for the Band--I mean the patrol. This is our chance. What's the good of bein' a Scout if you don't do any scoutin'?" "Anyhow, I think we ought to tell the marshal about this," I said. "Those robbers are not going to wait for the Scouts to get busy. They probably jumped a freight last night and are in New York by this time. But maybe the marshal could do something." Bill was bound to tell the other Scouts about it first. So after dinner we got the boys together and all went over and took a look at the footprint. Skinny was even more excited than Bill was. "We are hot on the trail, fellers," said he. "The thing to do is to surround them. We ought to have captured them yesterday. Bet your life we'll take a rope next time." But when Pa found us talking it over on our woodpile, and we told him about it, he said for us to go to the marshal's at once, and if we didn't he would. It being Sunday, we went to the marshal's house and found him sitting on the front porch dressed in his best clothes. He was some surprised when he saw the eight of us walk into his yard. It made us wish that we had uniforms on. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?" said he. "Is this a committee of distinguished citizens to ask me to run for mayor or something?" Bill was bursting with the news, but Skinny was the first to speak. "We want you to run for those burglars," he said, "and we can tell you who they are." When he heard that the marshal began to get interested. "Well, who were they? Maybe," he went on, smiling at us, "you youngsters have come to give yourselves up." "We didn't do it," put in Bill. "We wouldn't do such a thing, but we know who did. We don't know his name, but we know his track. We could have caught him yesterday if we'd wanted to. I wish we had now."