Deliberately Elmer again pretended to cut the vine with his forefinger, then shook his head and afterward pointed to the knife.

The woman's black eyes followed each movement, and evidently she began to grasp the idea that he did not desire the weapon so as to injure, but to a.s.sist her.

"Glory be!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lil Artha, who had been almost holding his breath with suspense while all this pantomime business was going on, "look at that, would you, fellows? A bright thought has managed to get a foothold in her brain. I bet you it needed a sledge hammer to pound it in. Say, she's beginning to smile at you, Elmer. You've won out. She believes you mean all right. Give him the toad-sticker, Mark, and let him get to work."

Elmer knew that his actions would no longer be misconstrued. The Italian woman understood.

So he held out his hand and received the knife from Mark. The woman moved uneasily, but the smile Elmer gave her was surely enough to disarm any lingering suspicion she may have entertained.

Of course it was only a small job now to cut through the obstinate vine at a point where the greatest holding point lay.

"There you are!" remarked Lil Artha, as the knife severed the last strand.

The woman got slowly to her feet. She folded her arms across her bosom with what seemed to be an air of resignation. Yet Elmer knew that all the while those sparkling black eyes were watching him intently.

The woman had guessed that Elmer must be the leader of the three strangers in uniform. Hence she looked to him for orders.

"Well, what're we going to do with this pretty thing, now that we've got it?" remarked Lil Artha.

"I suppose, first of all, we ought to go back to the shack," said Elmer.

"You mean to hold her a prisoner, I take it?" asked Mark, who had the utmost faith in the acting scout master's ability to grasp the situation.

"That's about the only thing open to us," Elmer replied. "Through the woman perhaps we can get in touch with the three men who are holding Nat Scott a prisoner, and bring about his release."

"I don't see how," grumbled Lil Artha. "If you had all that trouble getting her to understand you only meant to cut the old vine, and not her foot off, how in the d.i.c.kens d'ye expect to get her to know we don't mean to do her bunch any harm?"

"Oh, there may be ways," smiled Elmer.

"But you don't speak Italiano, Elmer; that's dead sure, else you'd have used it right now to tell her you only wanted to cut the vine," Lil Artha went on.

"How about George?" remarked Elmer.

"What! George Robbins?" asked the tall scout.

"Why, yes, you remember he told us his father employs a large number of these foreigners, and unless I'm mistaken I think I remember hearing George say he'd been picking up quite a lot of Italian words."

"That sounds all to the good then," declared Lil Artha, with enthusiasm.

"Bully for George! His knowledge may be the key that's going to unlock this old padlock for us."

"Then let's get back to the shack. Fall in around the woman. That ought to tell her what we want her to do."

Elmer, as he spoke, took up his position alongside the prisoner, while Mark and the long-legged scout clapped their sticks to their right shoulders as though parading arms.

Then Elmer pointed backward in the direction they had just come from.

"Go!" he said, impressively.

Whether the prisoner understood the word, or judged from their actions what was required, Elmer could not say. All he cared for was the fact that when he started off she accompanied him, limping a little as though she might have twisted her ankle somewhat in the violence of her struggles, looking sullen rather than fearful now, and apparently resigned to her fate, whatever that might prove to be.

There was no difficulty about reaching the abandoned shack again. All Elmer had to do was to follow the broad trail they had made when chasing after the fleeing woman.

They found no change when they presently drew up at the hidden retreat.

Nor was there any sign of the other scouts, though once Elmer thought he did hear loud and excited voices up on the side of the mountain, as though Matty and his detachment might have found it necessary to leave the lowlands, and were having troubles of their own.

"Well," remarked Lil Artha, as they arrived in front of the shack, "here we are, all to the good, and right side up with care. The question is, what d'ye expect to do with the signorina, now that you've got her?"

"She must be kept a prisoner in the shanty until we can decide on our course, and get George here," replied Elmer, so readily that the others understood how he must have his plan of action fully mapped out in his own mind.

"Let's see you usher her in, then," chuckled the tall scout, just as though he antic.i.p.ated enjoying a treat when Elmer tried to "shoo" the Italian woman into the place.

But it proved the easiest thing possible. When Elmer took her by the arm and pointed to the open door the woman gave him one look, shook herself free from his grasp, and hastened to vanish within the shack.

"Easy as falling off a log," declared Lil Artha, a shade of disappointment in his voice, for he had antic.i.p.ated more or less of a struggle.

Elmer quietly closed the door.

"How are you going to fasten it?" asked Mark.

"I wish that was the hardest nut I had to crack," laughed the scout master. "Fortunately the door opens outwardly."

"Unfortunately, you mean," echoed Mark, as he touched the painful lump on his forehead.

"I say yes to that," grinned Lil Artha, whose nose had stopped bleeding by this time, but whose face was a sight to behold, being smeared with all manner of strange red marks that made him resemble an Apache Indian on the warpath.

"As it does open outwardly, however," Elmer went on saying, with a sympathetic smile for the woes of his chums, "it ought to be easy enough for us to barricade the door. Look around, boys, and see if you can find several good stout sticks about three or four feet long. Even a small tree trunk would be about what we want."

"And I think I know where to find one," said Lil Artha, hastening away, "because I took a header over it when we were chasing the dago woman."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CALL OF THE WOLF.

"That's the ticket, Lil Artha," said Elmer, as the tall scout returned presently, bearing on his shoulder quite a good-sized log about five feet in length.

"Reckon that ought to hold all right," panted the burden bearer, as he cast the small tree trunk at Elmer's feet.

"Fine and dandy," commented Mark, beginning to get the barricade in position.

Of course the log had to be planted in such a way that it might secure a grip on the door. This meant that it must incline at an angle of more than forty-five degrees.

Elmer dug a little hole, first of all, at a certain distance from the door, after the length of the log had been tested.

Then, with the help of his chums, he seated one end of the log firmly in this. When the other end was allowed to slip down the face of the door it rested about halfway.