There was something at the bottom of the opening and he reached in his hand and brought it out.

It was a folded bit of coarse paper tied around a stone and, unfolding it, he read as follows:

"Dear Bill: Coast is clear. Think we can do the crack to-night."

"Very good!" he said to himself as he put the paper in his pocket, shut off the light and hurried away. "I don't know if this was overlooked or if it has just been put here but I am glad I have secured it."

He mixed in with the boys and left them to go to his room in one of the cottages where he was now quartered only a short time before the hour of retiring.

When ten o'clock struck he waited about ten minutes and, looking out of the window to assure himself that all was dark, he opened the sash and flashed his light in the direction of the river, keeping the light on until an answering flash in the distance told him that his own signal had been seen.

Then he sent a number of long and short flashes and waited a few moments until he saw a steady flash of a few seconds in the direction where he had seen the first.

"All right, he is ready," he said to himself and then sent a number of flashes as before, holding the light for a longer or shorter period as required to indicate dots and dashes in the Morse code of telegraphy.

As a matter of fact, he was sending a message in this manner to the editor of the News as already arranged between them.

His first long flash was to determine if the editor was at his post and, having ascertained that he was, he announced that he was about to send an important message and then when the answer came that they were ready for him he went on.

Leaving out all unnecessary and obvious words, his message to the News man was as follows:

"Inform bank officials attempt robbery be made to-night. Thought they would keep away from bank account danger."

To telephone at that time of night would be inconvenient as well as not feasible and Jack had therefore hit upon this method of sending word to Mr. Brooke as being the safest and surest.

He had signaled before with great success, his light being a powerful one and capable of carrying to the river without the least difficulty, providing the night was clear.

"That is all right," he muttered as he shut off his light, closed the window and turned into bed, having no need of any light and not caring to have any show from the cottage at that hour.

Unknown to him, however, there were those who saw his signals, or a part of them, in addition to the man for whom they were intended.

Peter Herring and Ernest Merritt, returning from a clandestine visit to the village after hours were coming along the road, keeping as much in the shadows as possible, not caring to be seen, when Herring whispered:

"See that light?"

"Yes, what is it? Keeps winking and blinking like a——"

"Sh! some one is signaling. H'm! regular dots and dashes, that's what they are. H'm! do you know the code?"

"Yes, a little bit. We used to practise it——"

"Watch 'em. H'm! I've got some of it. It's a regular message to——"

The two prowlers advanced as close as they dared and watched the signals, muttering to each other as one word and another was flashed out.

"What do you make it, Pete? 'Keep away from something on account of danger.' Is that it?"

"Yes, 'keep away from bank,' that's it."

"Keep away from the bank? What bank? The river or the ravine?"

"No, stupid! The bank in the town. The one that was robbed. Are you so stupid you can't put two and two together? That's Sheldon's room where the lights came from. He was warning his father to keep away from the bank on account of danger. Don't you see? He is not the fine honorable fellow he makes himself out to be."

"H'm! that gives us another hold on him. If he puts on any airs with us now we'll spit upon him."

"Sh! not so loud. We've got to get in without being found out. It is not late but it's after hours and a half minute or a half hour over time is all the same with the doctor."

"It's a good thing we were late, Pete. Otherwise, we wouldn't have seen this high-toned burglar's son signaling to——"

"No, but keep still," whispered Herring and the two hurried on in the darkness till they reached the rear of the building where an associate was waiting to let them in at their signal.

Jack went to sleep feeling assured that if the bank robbers made another attempt to rob the Riverton institution they would meet with a warm reception and satisfied that he had done his duty.

In the morning when Bucephalus came with the mail he quite astonished the boys by announcing:

"Dem robbers was at deir wo'k again las' night, down at de bank on de river an' one of dem was shooted bad an' am in jail, so dey tell me down at de station."

"Tried to rob the bank again, did they?" cried one or two of the boys excitedly.

"Yas'r, but the bank kind o' suspected dat dey was coming and was prepared for them. The robbers did not suspicion that anything was wrong for the bank was playing 'possum and the robbers was caught at their surreptitious employment and——"

"Which one got away and how many were there, Buck?" asked Herring, who seemed puzzled over something.

"Ah donno sah, Ah don' keep acco'nt of such obnoxious individuals as bank robbers, sah," replied Bucephalus, with great dignity.

"Was the fellow with the white mustache caught?"

"Ah donno, sah, and——"

"What is it to you which one was caught and how do you happen to know so much about them, Herring?" asked Harry.

"It is not much to me, of course," returned Herring, "although I fancy it is a lot to somebody not a hundred miles away."

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Harry. "You are hinting at something. Out with it if you are man enough."

Herring flushed scarlet and then, feeling that he was defied, he said doggedly:

"You'd better ask Sheldon how he is interested in the matter."

"What has he got to do with it?" asked Percival, hotly, having just arrived on the scene.

"What has he got to do with it?" sneered Herring. "Oh, nothing very much. He signaled to the robbers to keep away from the bank last night, that's all. He must have some interest in them to do that."

Jack said nothing, although he was clearly agitated and Percival turned to him and asked kindly:

"It is not so, is it, Jack? Say that it is not so."

"No, it is not so. I signaled to Brooke and told him to warn the bank officials that there was to be another attempt to rob it."

"You knew this, Jack?" asked Dick.

"Yes, I knew it," quietly.

"Of course he knew it," said Herring, with a disagreeable laugh. "Why wouldn't he know it when he had a meeting with the chief robber yesterday afternoon and told him that he would keep him and his pal posted as to a good time to rob the bank?"

"Peter Herring," said Jack, turning white but retaining full command of himself, "you are a miserable liar!"

"Oh, am I?" and Herring began to bluster, feeling sure of his ground. "You won't deny that you had a meeting with a disguised man yesterday afternoon in the woods near the foot of the Academy hill, will you? Will you deny that you telegraphed with your pocket flashlight, 'Keep away from the bank on account of danger?' You did not do that?"

"That was only a part of my message. It was sent to Mr. Brooke, the editor of the News at Riverton and not to the robbers."

"Why should he send warning to the robbers, you toad?" demanded Dick, angrily.

"Stop, Dick, never mind," said Jack, putting a hand on his friend's arm. "The fellow is lying and he knows it."

"Oh, I do, hey?" and Herring turned purple with rage. "Maybe I am lying when I tell the boys that you had a secret interview with your father yesterday afternoon and that he is the chief robber, the one with the white mustache, the one that Jones shot at. Maybe you will deny that you have a father?"

"I do deny it," said Jack, quietly. "My father is dead, as I told you once before."

"You are a liar!" roared Herring, "and I'll bet that you are just as bad as this——"

That was as far as he got for in an instant Jack had knocked him down.



CHAPTER XII

THE TROUBLES OF AN EDITOR

There was great excitement among the boys in an instant and while the greater part of them sympathized with Jack, there were some who took sides with Herring and one of these now ejaculated:

"Ha! if he wants to fight let him go at it fair. Get a ring and——"

"Young ge'men," said the negro coachman, pushing forward and throwing aside the boys who were rushing at Jack, "Ah beg of yo' to remembah dat dis am against de rules and dat you will be severely chastised if not punished for dis."

Herring picked himself up, brushed his clothes hastily and cried in angry tones:

"You will have to give me satisfaction for that, Sheldon. You called me a liar and you struck me without provocation. I don't stand for anything like that I can tell you and——"

"What is this?" a newcomer said and the boys suddenly found the drill master among them. "A fight? I shall have something to say about that. Disperse at once and proceed to the drill ground."

"Sheldon called me a liar and struck me!" blustered Herring. "I am not going to have——"

"We will hear this case later," said Colonel Bull, severely. "Do as I command or I shall put you all under arrest."

Some of the boys smiled at the idea of putting the whole school under arrest but they all moved away and were shortly in regular formation going through their customary morning exercises.

After drill Percival went to Jack and said:

"There is some mystery here, old chap. Won't you tell me what it is?"

"Not now, Dick," answered Jack. "Some other time, perhaps, but not now. I have no father as I told you once before."

"But you know this man that claimed——"

"Yes, but I would rather not say any more about it."

"All right, Jack, I won't urge you," and the two went together into the main building and took their seats in the great schoolroom.

The boys had been at their tasks for some little time when the doctor sent in for Jack to come and see him in his study.

Jack left the room and was gone some little time, returning at length with the doctor who said:

"There is no blame attaching to this young gentleman for what has lately happened in the neighboring town and his rank is as high now as it ever was. I wish you to treat him with the same respect that you have always shown him and which he richly deserves."

"H'm! that does not tell us very much," muttered Harry to Arthur who sat next to him. "We always did like Jack but the mystery is no more clear than it was before."

"I trust that there will be no repetition of the scene of this morning," the doctor went on. "There may have been provocation on both sides but we will not allude further to this and the rest of you will forget it or at any rate not speak of it."

"That is not so easy," murmured Arthur to Harry. "It clears Jack in a way, at any rate, and that is enough for me."

Jack went to his place and the doctor took his seat at his desk and matters went on as usual.

Herring gave Jack the blackest of black looks when next they met but Jack paid no more attention to this than if he had not seen it and Herring muttered something under his breath which Jack did not hear.

"It seems rather strange," said Percival to some of the boys at recess, "that Wise did not more thoroughly disapprove of the squabble of this morning, but the reason I suppose is that he respected the mystery surrounding Jack and did not care to clear it up by making too great an investigation. Jack says his father is dead and I shall believe him and that liar Herring had better keep his lips closed tight on the subject."

"You are breaking the doctor's injunction that we were to say nothing about it, Dick," laughed Billy Manners, "but I suppose you couldn't just help it. I know I couldn't."

"Well, that is all I am going to say about it," replied Percival and the matter was not mentioned although, none of the boys could help thinking of it at odd times.

Herring still treated Jack with disdain but was careful to avoid an open rupture, the recollection of the stunning blow which the apparently slight young fellow had given him acting as a deterrent to his wrath so that he avoided the boy as much as possible while he still retained his rancor.

Percival said nothing to Jack about his past life, preferring to let the boy take his own time about clearing up the mystery which was no clearer than before.

"I'll get even with Sheldon before I leave the Academy," declared Herring to Ernest Merritt and another of his satellites a day or so after the exciting scene in front of the school. "He can't walk over me if he has got Dick Percival for his friend."

"You can't lick him," laughed Merritt, who did not have the same fear of his associate that he formerly had. "He has a fist like a rock for all that he looks so slight. You were three or four minutes coming round the other day."

"Suppose he has?" snarled Herring. "I can train, can't I? If I send him a challenge to fight, he can't refuse to take it up and keep his self-respect, can he?"

"Yah! what do you know about self-respect or honor?" laughed Merritt. "You haven't got either and——"

He was obliged to retreat and leave the sentence unfinished to avoid the swinging blow that Herring aimed at him, the third boy narrowly missing catching it in his stead.

"Here! Look out what you are about!" he roared. "Look where you're hitting, can't you?"

"Pete Herring means to do Jack an injury, Art," said Harry who had seen the three talking together, "and we shall have to watch him."

"I guess Jack can watch himself," chuckled Arthur. "He is not afraid of Pete Herring and he is not a boy to be caught napping."

"But some one threw him down the ravine."

"Yes, but it won't happen again and so we won't have to keep a watch upon this fellow. I'd like to know if it were really Pete who did it. Dick met him and Merritt right after the thing happened and puts it down to one of them."

"I think it was Pete myself," said Harry, "and that's why I think he needs looking after."

The new number of the Academy magazine was expected to come out in a day or so and promised to be a very interesting one, Percival and the assisting members of the editorial staff having gone over the proofs and found them satisfactory.

There was still some little matter to go in and Jack promised to furnish this, taking or sending it to Mr. Brooke who did the printing.

On Friday afternoon, having written the last of his copy, Jack took Percival's runabout which he now had permission to do at any time, and set off for Riverton and the office of the News.

He saw Dick as he was leaving and said:

"I am going down with the last of the matter for the magazine. Will you come along?"

"No, I guess not. I am getting up for examination next week. I am a bit behind in my work. You won't hurt the machine."

"Very good. Brooke will want to print the paper and have it sent up to-morrow and so I am giving him the last of the stuff for it. It will not take long to set it up and then he can print it to-morrow."

"All right, I can trust you with it. Guess I don't have to revise what you write."

The run to Riverton was made in a short time and Jack left the car outside and went into the office, being somewhat surprised to hear the sound of presses going as he entered.

They were not usually started till the next day but Jack surmised that the editor might be running off some special job to save time and went straight to the inner office where he saw Mr. Brooke pecking away at the typewriter.

"Pretty busy now, Mr. Sheldon," said the little man, looking up for an instant. "You'll have to excuse me."

"But I have brought the last of the copy for the Gazette. Shall I give it to the foreman?"

"The last of it? Why, you sent it this morning and told us to go ahead with the magazine."

"I sent you copy this morning?" exclaimed Jack in some surprise.

"Yes, this morning or early this afternoon. We set it up and they are now running off——"

"But I sent you nothing, Mr. Brooke. You say they are running off the paper now?"

"Yes, of course. You said you wanted it the first thing in the morning."

With a vague sense of apprehension that something was wrong and yet unable to say why, Jack went out into the printing office and picked up a newly printed sheet from a pile that lay in front of the press then being worked.

The sheet was not folded and several pages of the matter were visible at once.

Quickly glancing his eye over the sheet he suddenly came upon an article on the first page which had no business there.

It was not more than four or five lines in length and was a bitter and most scurrilous attack on Dr. Wise, signed "Jack Sheldon."

"Stop the press," cried Jack to the boy who was feeding the sheets. "Stop the press! This thing must not go in!"

"Hey?" shouted the boy.

"Stop the press!" cried Jack and in a moment he had thrown off the belt and the machine came to a standstill.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Brooke, missing the noise of the press and coming out to learn the reason.

"This!" said Jack, pointing out the offensive article. "Did you allow this to be set up, Mr. Brooke?"

"I? No, indeed. I did not know it was here. If you don't want it, why did you send it in?"

"I did not. I am not in the habit of signing my nickname to things I write. There was something else on this page and this rubbish has been inserted in its place. You can see that there is a break somewhere. How did you get this? Unlock the forms. It must be taken out at once. Where are the proofs? It will be easy enough to get the right matter to put back or it may be on one of the galleys."

While the press boy was looking for the missing type and the foreman was unlocking the forms, Jack questioned Mr. Brooke regarding the orders to hasten the printing of the magazine and the identity of the person who had brought them.

"The foreman took the order," said the editor, "and told me about it. I supposed it was all right. I don't know who set up the article you naturally object to. If I did I would discharge him."

"What do you know about this?" Jack asked the foreman who was busy at the forms. "Did you see the copy or the proofs?"

"No, I did not," the man replied. "I had your order to go ahead with the printing but knew nothing of any extra matter to be set up. I never saw this article before. It has been set up and inserted without my knowledge."

"Here is some matter on a galley," said the boy. "Is that what you are looking for?"

"Yes," said Jack, looking over the type, for Mr. Brooke could not afford a typesetting machine and set his paper by hand. "Put it where it belongs and when the magazines are printed send the bundle direct to me. If anything is in them that I do not approve we will not pay for the printing and in the future will have our work done elsewhere."

"You do not hold me responsible for this?" asked Brooke.

"No, but I mean to find out who is."



CHAPTER XIII

TRYING TO FIX THE BLAME

Saving out two or three of the sheets containing the spurious article, folding them neatly and putting them carefully in the inside pocket of his coat, Jack ordered the rest to be burned in the office stove and personally witnessed their destruction.

Then the missing lines were put in the form, the latter locked up and the printing proceeded, the inserted lines being speedily put into "pi."

"Send the bundle addressed to me at the Academy to-morrow morning," Jack said, "and remember that if there is any change whatever, the editors will not be responsible for the payment."

"But you don't hold me responsible for this rascality?" sputtered Brooke in the same nervous manner he used when pecking at his typewriter. "You can't expect that——"

"I have said all that I have to say at present," replied Jack.

"Yes, but I want to understand the situation."

"I have said nothing about what has already happened. I allude to any future happenings. Send me the bundle in the morning."

"Couldn't you call for it? That is generally done. It won't take you any time at all to run down in the car and to-morrow is Saturday and a holiday. With me it is a busy day."

The editor seemed to be in such real distress that Jack answered:

"I will flash you an answer to-night at ten o'clock by the Morse international."

The boy and the editor were now in the latter's sanctum and not in the main office so that there were no hearers to the conversation.

"International, not American?" asked the editor.

"Yes. Every one does not know the International but every local telegrapher knows the American."

"Yes, but I don't see why——"

"If some unscrupulous person should send you a message purporting to come from me you would know that it did not if my instructions were not carried out, wouldn't you?"

"Certainly, but have you any apprehension that——"

"It is possible. I will let you know to-night. I do not want to telephone and will flash you instead."

"Very good."

Jack then left the building, entered the car and in a quarter of an hour was at the Academy.

He saw Harry and Arthur on the grounds and called to them to go with him as soon as he put up the car.

The three went to Percival's room where they found the young fellow busy over a Greek translation.

"Read this, you fellows," said Jack, distributing the printed sheets he had brought up from the office of the News.

"But, I say, Jack!" exclaimed Percival. "You don't mean——"

"Why, this is positively awful!" gasped Harry.

"There will be no more Gazettes after this," wailed Arthur.

"You don't imagine, any of you, that I wrote that?" asked Jack in his coolest tone. "Here, let me have one of the sheets."

"But how did it get in then?"

"This is not the revised sheet. In the first place I do not sign my articles 'Jack Sheldon,' do I?"

"I never knew that you did."

"And in the next a very careless compositor set this up. It is badly spaced, has many errors and is ungrammatical."

"Yes, I can see that but I don't know anything about the spacing."

"It looks as if a green hand had set it up and that gives me an idea."

"Yes, but Jack, how did it get in at all?" asked Percival, still in the dark regarding the article.

"It won't be in the paper to-morrow," and then Jack told of his accidental discovery of the obnoxious article and what he had done about it.

Percival thought a few minutes and said:

"Some one who doesn't like you has done this, Jack, or had it done. You don't suspect Brooke?"

"No, for it would mean the loss of all our patronage to him. He is not such a fool."

"No, of course not. Who is it then?"

"That I don't know. There was collusion with some one in the News office, of course, and it will be difficult to find just where it comes in. This thing was done to throw discredit on me and to stop the life of the Gazette."

"That's just what it would mean if the thing had gone through."

"It was done by some one who knows the Academy and the fellows," declared Harry. "It was aimed at Jack, principally. We know who does not like him here and it should not be a hard matter to find who is responsible."

"It may be one for all that," replied Jack. "This is a serious business and the perpetrators will cover their tracks. One thing is certain. You must watch every boy that reads the Gazette to-morrow. Shall I have the bundle sent up here or go after it?"

"We have generally gone after them and done the distributing ourselves in the past," said Percival. "If we do that now the fellow who engineered this business will be the first to get a copy of the paper and to make it public. Did any one see you leave this afternoon or did any one know why you went to Riverton?"

"No, there was no one around when I left except yourself and only Hal and Art saw me return."

"Then no one suspects that you have discovered this article and suppressed it. I will take a run down in the morning and get the papers. You were to let Brooke know?"

"Yes, to-night."

"Good! Tell him that I will call for the papers and to deliver them to no one else."

"Why don't you phone him?" asked Arthur. "That will save a lot of trouble."

"And perhaps cause more," laughed Jack. "I don't like telephoning myself. There are too many listeners."

"I have a wire," said Dick. "You may use it if you like. I do often and I don't know that I am bothered much."

"Just now the old ladies on the party wire are not doing their afternoon gossip," chuckled Arthur. "They are busy getting supper instead. I don't believe we would have any trouble. Go ahead, Jack."

Thus urged Jack stepped to the telephone, took down the receiver and called:

"Let me have one two three Riverton, please. Office of the News, yes. They are not busy?"

"Here's your party," said the operator on the other end of the wire.

At the same moment Jack heard some one say, not at the 'phone but evidently in the room where the instrument was kept:

"Well, I done it but I wanted the money."

Jack recognized the voice as that of the boy in the News office.

"How much did you get?"

This time the speaker was the editor, Mr. Brooke.

"Five dollars."

"Who paid you? Here, wait, till I answer that confounded call. Hello! who is this?"

"John Sheldon, of Hilltop. Is this Mr. Brooke? Dick Percival will call for the bundle in the morning."

"Very good. Now then, you rascal——" the voice being less plainly heard, "who was it paid you for doing it?"

"Keep still, boys," said Jack, turning his head. "I am on the track."



CHAPTER XIV

"SUSPICION IS NOT PROOF"

Jack listened attentively to catch the reply of the boy for upon it much depended.

Some one had paid the boy to set up and insert the obnoxious article and Jack knew that his theory that a poor compositor had done the work was correct.

Now the thing to be learned was who had paid him for what he had done and Jack believed that he was about to be enlightened.

Then he heard the click of the receiver being put back upon the hook and the connection was cut off.

"That's too bad!" he muttered as he hung up. "I thought I was going to find out something. Maybe I can yet."

"Did you get him?" asked Percival.

"Yes," and Jack told what he had heard over the wire.

"It's too bad that Brooke hung up so soon," said Dick, "but can't you get him again?"

"I suppose I might."

"And ask him pointblank who it was that hired the office boy to do this dirty work."

"I will, for he must know that I could hear all that was said in the room. That is a common occurrence."

Jack took down the receiver again and called up the office of the News, presently getting an answer after some delay:

"Line is busy."

"Call me up when it is not, please," said Jack, giving the number of Dick's 'phone.

Then he hung up again and said to the eager boys:

"The line is busy, of course. It always is when you want it particularly. However, they will call me up when it is free."

"Somebody paid the boy to get this thing into the Gazette," observed Percival, "and that somebody was an enemy of ours. Who was it?"

"Some one who wants to do Jack an injury," said Harry. "There are Pete Herring, Ernest Merritt and a few others like them but Herring and his side partner are the most likely ones."

"It is really narrowed down to those two when you come to it," suggested Arthur, "for they hate him the worst and are more active than the others."

"I think we'd better take that for granted," added Harry, "and work along those lines. I think it was one of them, just as I think it was one of them who pushed Jack off the bank."

"They may have hired a third party to do the work," remarked Percival. "They would know that they would be suspected on account of their opposition to Jack and so wish to hide their tracks."

"That's all right on the supposition that they are clever fellows," laughed Harry, "but your rascals are always weak somewhere and trip themselves up. They say it takes a smart man to be a rogue and neither Herring nor Merritt has any medals for brilliancy of intellect."

"No, and yet they have a certain shrewdness. Detection in a case of this sort would mean expulsion from the Academy and I do not believe either of them would care to face that."

"No, but all the same I think it was one of them and I believe we will eventually discover this."

"Aren't they a long time in calling you up, Jack?" asked Percival with some impatience. "Try them again."

Jack took up the receiver again, therefore, and called the News office.

After some delay the girl at the central office said:

"They don't answer. I guess they must have gone home."

"Central cannot get the News," said Jack, hanging up. "She thinks everybody must have gone home. It is rather late for a fact," glancing at his watch. "I had not thought of that."

"Has Brooke a telephone in his house?" asked Percival.

"I don't know, I'll look," and Jack took down the address book hanging at the side of the instrument.

"I don't remember that he has," murmured Percival.

"No, he has not, only one at his office," reported Jack, after looking in the directory. "We cannot catch him now."

"That's too bad," grumbled Harry. "I would have liked to know positively about the business before supper."

"I can call him up after supper," suggested Dick. "He often goes back to the office of an evening. If he knows anything he will tell me, of course."

"If he does?" cried Harry. "Won't he?"

"If the boy tells him, but the boy may not."

"He couldn't refuse. He'd lose his job if he did."

"But the boy may not know the person who hired him. All the Hilltop boys are not known in Riverton and it is not positive that one of the boys of the Academy hired him. It may have been a third party."

The three boys now left the room, leaving Percival alone and not seeing him until supper time.

Later, Jack went to his friend's room to learn if anything had been heard from the editor.

"I have not been able to get him yet," reported Dick, "but I will try again later."

Up to the time of the boy's retiring for the night, however, nothing had been heard from Brooke and the boys were as much in the dark as ever.

In the morning Dick went in the runabout and got the bundle of papers from Brooke.

"Well, did you find out who hired the boy to put in that outrageous article?" the young fellow asked.

"No, I did not," said Brooke. "He said he did not know the young man and could not tell him again if he saw him."

"Where is he now, the boy I mean?"

"I don't know. He did not come to work this morning and his mother says he has gone up the river to take a job somewhere else."

"Did the foreman see the man who gave the order supposedly from Mr. Sheldon?"

"He says he had the order by telephone and never saw the copy which he was told would be sent in. Please look over the papers now to see if they are all right."

Dick read over one of the magazines, compared it hastily with a dozen others and found that no extraneous matter had been introduced.

"Yes, they are all right," he said, "and we will pay you for them but I would very much like to find out who was juggling with them. It is a queer thing all around. Wouldn't the foreman know Jack's voice?"

"He says he never thought to question it when some one said over the wire that he was Sheldon. He never had to do with your friend anyhow. I did most of the talking."

"But didn't you think it odd to send such a message over the 'phone?"

"I was pretty busy at the time working at the paper and we had some job work besides so that I left things to the foreman. He is rather hard of hearing and cannot distinguish voices very well. You have to yell at him to make him understand but the more noise there is in the office the better he can hear."

"Well, I don't suppose we will see the boy again and I wouldn't know him if I did see him. Jack might, for he remembers faces. What's the boy's name, anyhow?"

"Joe Jackson. He is red headed and squints. He always did get on my nerves and I am not sorry that he has gone but I shall have to find another."

"Well, the papers are all right and we will give you the job again but I hope we will not have any more such trouble. You can trust to Jack to see if there is anything wrong, however."

Dick took the papers, put them in the car and started for the Academy, reaching which in something less than half an hour, he found a big crowd of the Hilltop boys waiting for him.

They all clamored for the papers and Dick rapidly distributed them, giving Jack a significant look to indicate that everything was all right and that the conspirators, whoever they might be, would be greatly disappointed when they examined the Gazette.

Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners and Jack himself kept their eyes upon the suspected boys to see how the perusal of the magazine affected them.

"Oh, I say, fellows, here's something rich!" Arthur heard Merritt say as he opened the paper. "Let me read—why, that's nothing."

"He is one of the disappointed ones," thought Arthur, "but he may have only had knowledge of the thing rather than participated in it."

Harry kept his eyes upon Herring when the latter began to look at the paper and noticed that he seemed disappointed for he turned page after page evidently without finding what he wanted.

"There's nothing in that!" he sputtered in disgust. "It is not worth the paper it is printed on and wouldn't be if it were printed on the worst kind of brown wrapping paper. I won't subscribe for it again."

"What is the matter with it?" asked Harry.

"There's nothing in it, that's what."

"You mean that you expected to find something that is not——" and then Harry caught a warning look from Jack and stopped short.

Herring flushed crimson, however, and looked guilty, throwing the paper on the ground with an angry exclamation and walking hurriedly off the campus.

"That's one of the fellows if not the principal one," said Harry to Jack with a triumphant tone. "I have always suspected him."

"Suspicion is not proof, Harry," answered Jack, "and we must have more evidence before we can convict him."

"Just wait till we do, then. I wouldn't be in his slippers at the time, not for a hundred dollars!"



CHAPTER XV

FUN AND EXCITEMENT

The new number of the Gazette was liked by all the boys with a few exceptions, which were to be expected and nowhere was anything but praise heard in regard to Jack Sheldon's first appearance as an editor for the disaffected ones were wise enough to remain quiet after the first outbreak of disapproval.

"Herring will keep still," said Dick to a few of his chief cronies who were in the secret. "He does not understand just how the thing happened, but he knows that he is suspected and will keep under cover for a time. Don't say anything to arouse his suspicions."

"I came pretty near letting the cat out of the bag," laughed Harry, "but I will be careful after this."

"Yes, you must be. You are too apt to sputter out what you think without any regard to the consequences."

The Gazette was circulated among the boys of the Academy and also sent to their parents and to many other schools which exchanged with them, so that it had a considerable circulation.

In a short time there were complimentary notices of the latest number of the Gazette in several of the school periodicals, all of them noticing its improvement and speaking highly of the new editor.

"Somebody thought that the Gazette would be a dead one," laughed Billy Manners one afternoon when reading over one of the other papers with a number of his chums, "but it will be livelier than ever now. Jack is just the boy to run it and make it one of the best there is."

Billy Manners was one of the chief funmakers of the Academy, although he was a good student as well and stood high in his classes.

He was fond of a joke even if it happened to be at his own expense but more often it was at that of some one else.

Billy and the others were so much interested in reading the complimentary notice of the Gazette that they failed to observe the coming of Colonel Bull, the military instructor of the Academy.

Now the Colonel was a bit of a stickler for ceremony and the boys were always obliged to salute him when they met him.

Failing to notice his approach, however, he was upon them before they saw him and the only warning of his coming was the hearing of a sharp command:

"Attention! Where are your manners, you cubs? Salute me this instant and keep your eyes about you another time."

The boys were at attention in a moment and gave the salute in the customary stiff and wooden fashion to which they were used.

"What are you reading?" demanded the Colonel. "Some sentimental rubbish, I suppose. Let me see it."

Billy handed over the magazine and the Colonel looked at it, being obliged to put on his glasses in order to read it, however.

"H'm! foolish but not as bad as I thought. Now you may go but at another time keep your eyes about you. Break ranks!"

The boys assumed a natural attitude and Billy stooped to pick up the paper which the Colonel had thrown contemptuously upon the ground.

Billy was not a ventriloquist but he did have a way of altering his voice and now, feeling a bit sore at the pompous Colonel and desiring to be revenged suddenly shouted in an ear-piercing tone:

"Look out! Mad dog!"

At once the Colonel, who was fat and more than forty, let out a sudden ejaculation and bolted for the nearest tree.

His hat flew off, his glasses dangled at the end of their cord and thrashed around like mad and the colonel's short, fat legs ate up space in a most remarkable manner.

There was a tree in the way which the colonel had not noticed and he ran into it with considerable force, knocking off his wig which the boys, up to that time, had never seen except upon his head.

He got up in great haste, grabbed his wig from the ground, clapped it on his head hind side before and at once started to climb the tree.

The sight of the short, fat, bald drillmaster, with his wig awry, endeavoring to climb a little tree was too much for the dignity of the boys and they burst into a roar of laughter.

They had no thought of consequences, no fear of future punishment, but just laughed as hard as they could.

Then there was a sudden cry of alarm around a turn in the road.

"Hallo! what's that?" cried Arthur.

"Great Scott! there is a mad dog after all!" gasped Harry.

A number of the smaller boys of the Academy suddenly appeared in full flight pursued by a panting, yelping, foam-covered dog whose every look showed that he was mad.

"H'm! the alarm was not given for nothing after all," muttered Billy, looking for a place of safety.

Harry and Arthur turned toward the Academy and ran as fast as they could, thinking nothing of fun now.

"Here, here, I must do something for those kids!" cried Billy, pausing in his flight.

There was some one else ready to do something for them, however.

The dog had almost reached the hindmost and smallest of the boys when Jack Sheldon suddenly came out of one of the cottages.

He saw the danger of the boys in an instant and plunged forward as if making a tackle in a game of football.

The dog was right in front of him at this moment and six feet away.

Suddenly the weight of a boy of a hundred and twenty-five pounds was dropped upon the dog's back with a force that laid him flat and gave him a start for which he was not looking.

In an instant he was flat on his belly on the ground with all the breath and the greater part of his desire to injure some one knocked out of him.

He was able to give one yelp and then Jack suddenly sprang off his back, gave him a contemptuous shove with his foot and said:

"Get out of here and go about your business!"

With his tail between his legs and a yelp of fright the dog suddenly turned and went down the road as fast as he had come up.

"Well! that was some way of dealing with a mad dog!" said Billy, with a laugh. "You knocked all the fight out of him in a jiffy."

"Has he gone for sure?" asked one of the small boys of Jack.

"Yes, and you need not be afraid. Whose dog was it and what brought him up here?"

"H'm, has he gone?" asked the Colonel who had reached the crotch of the tree, fortunately not far from the ground and now turned a very red and sweaty face upon the group below.

"Yes, sir," said Jack, saluting and at the same time having the greatest difficulty to refrain from smiling or even laughing outright at the comical appearance of the doughty warrior.

"Go and enquire more about the matter, Sheldon," said the Colonel and Jack went away, smiling broadly now but fortunately holding in his laugh.

"He wants a chance to get down from the tree, adjust his wig and get back his dignity," whispered Billy, who went off with Jack.

"Yes, but how did he get there?"

"It was one of my jokes and I'll get a wigging if he finds it out," chuckled Billy. "There wasn't any mad dog at first but I made him think there was. You should have seen him climb that tree, Jack. It would've delighted your heart. He won't be scoring us again in a hurry but if there had not been a mad dog I guess I would have caught it."

"Be careful how you play jokes on the Colonel, Billy," said Jack, when he heard the whole story and laughed over it. "There are some persons at whom it is not safe to poke fun and Colonel Bull is one."

"He forgot to put the last letter to his name, that's all," laughed Billy, "for he is a bully all right, but your advice is good and I will take it—or at least I will try."

"That is well put," said Jack, dryly, "for I don't believe you could help making jokes if you did try."



CHAPTER XVI

AN ANONYMOUS ACCUSATION

When next Jack saw the Colonel the latter had regained his wig, his natural complexion and his dignity, the last being so great that it was a perfect danger signal warning away all levity or even the slightest sign of it on the part of the boys.

"You showed very commendable bravery, Sheldon," said the Colonel, "and I congratulate you for your spirit. Rescuing those in danger is more commendable than conducting an imitation newspaper."

"Thank you, sir," said Jack, saluting and going back to his friends.

"What has Bull got against the Gazette?" he asked Arthur and Harry.

"Oh, it poked a little quiet fun at him once and he has never recovered from it," laughed Harry. "The Colonel is a bit of a martinet and imagines that the army lost one of its brightest officers when he was retired."

"But he was a Colonel?"

"Only by courtesy. He would have stayed on till he was a hundred years old if he could, the pay being a consideration, but was retired some twenty years ago and now earns his living by instructing us boys and by occasional articles to the educational magazines."

"It was all I could do to keep from laughing and I can imagine what Billy would get if the Colonel knew how he had been humbugged. He can be a very disagreeable person when he is aroused, I imagine."

The boy had not the slightest apprehension of having any trouble with the drillmaster, always treating him with the respect due his position and giving no cause for any complaint on the other's part.

The term was progressing smoothly, the majority of the Hilltop boys attending sedulously to their duties and trying to make a good record, the exceptions being very few, even some of the disagreeable set like Herring and his cronies working with considerable vigor.

Jack was already high in his classes and it looked as if he might be still higher before the end of the term for he was working with a purpose and meant to finish as near the top as possible.

"If you don't see Jack Sheldon at the head of his class by the end of the term I shall miss my guess," said Harry to Percival and one or two others one afternoon as some of the boys were taking a stroll through the woods near the bottom of the hill.

"I would not mind seeing him there even if he passes me," said Dick. "Jack is a good fellow and if he can win a scholarship it will mean much to him. He deserves it at any rate."

"But he is not in your classes," said Harry.

"No, but he might make a better average and next year he might be up with me and then I should have to look out. I was not thinking of just now alone."

The boys passed on, not knowing that Herring and Merritt were hiding behind some bushes within easy hearing.

"That gives me an idea," muttered Herring when the others had gone. "I can smash Sheldon's chances and I am going to do it."

"How will you manage it?" asked Merritt.

"You leave it to me," with a chuckle. "I may want you to help me a bit but I'll put a spoke in his wheel all right and the doctor won't admire him as much as he does when I get through with him."

"Look out that the thing does not fall through like that matter of cooking the Gazette to suit yourself," sneered the other.

"You were as much in that as I was," snarled Herring, "and if you split on me you will hurt yourself."

"I ain't going to split," whined Merritt, "but I know when a fellow makes a mess of a thing. You came near giving yourself away on that."

"Me? It was you that did it. Some of the fellows suspect you but they can't prove anything."

"Well, never mind that. How are you going to fix Sheldon this time?"

"I'll let you know. I've an idea but I want to get it in shape so that there won't be any slip. He won't come out on top nor anywhere near it when this thing gets to going."

"All right, I'll help you for I don't like Sheldon any better than you and I'd like to spoil his chances."

One morning a day or so after this Dr. Wise received an anonymous letter written and addressed in typewriting and posted at Riverton, which caused him some little uneasiness.

During the morning session when all of the boys were in the great schoolroom, he called for attention and said, evidently with the greatest reluctance:

"It is not my custom to notice unsigned communications but I have one here which I feel must be investigated in common justice to the person accused. I will read it."

The boys looked at each other, wondering what was coming and the doctor read the half sheet of note paper which he held in his hand.

"J. S. has a pony in his desk. You had better search it. This may account for his standing in class."

The boys all understand that by a "pony" was meant a translation of some work in one of the dead languages which they were studying at the time.

"This is a serious accusation," the doctor went on. "What boy has the initials J. S.?"

"I have, sir," spoke up Jack, promptly. "My name is John Sheldon."

"So have I!" cried the other boy. "I am Jasper Sawyer. Maybe it's me he means."

"That's nothing, my name is James Sharpe," said another.

"And I answer to the name of Jesse W. Smith!" piped up one of the smallest boys in the Academy.

There was a titter among the boys and Harry whispered to Arthur:

"Somebody has made a miscalculation here. I wonder who it is?"

"Smith is out of the question," remarked the doctor. "You are not studying Greek or Latin, are you, Smith?"

"No, sir," and the boys laughed again for Jesse W. Smith was not even in the Latin grammar as yet.

"Have any of the rest of you bearing the initials J. S. a translation in your desks?" the doctor asked. "I will take your word for it."

"No, sir," answered Sawyer and Sharpe.

"I have none, sir," said Jack, "but if you wish to search my desk you are at perfect liberty to do so. In fact, I will search it myself."

"That is not necessary, Sheldon," replied the doctor quickly, but Jack was already hunting through his desk, taking out everything at hand in a rapid fashion.

"Of course it is not!" sputtered Harry. "No one accuses him of——"

"Here is a translation, sir," said Jack, suddenly, when he came to the bottom of his desk, "but I need not tell you that it does not belong to me. It is a Caesar."

"Sheldon has been out of Caesar all this term," exclaimed Percival. "It is absurd to think that the pony——"

"Might it have belonged to you at some time, Sheldon?" asked the doctor, not noticing Dick's interruption. "I do not say that it did, you understand."

"No, sir, it might not. I never used a translation in my life and never will!"

Jack was hurriedly examining the book as he spoke and now noticed that the fly leaf was torn out, evidently in haste, the edges being ragged and a bit of writing on one of them.

"This bo——" was on one line and "erty of" on the next.

"I give you my word of honor, Doctor, that this is not my property," said Jack, "but I would like to keep it for the present," and he put the little book in his pocket.

"Very well, Sheldon," said Dr. Wise. "You are clearly exonerated from this charge."

"But Jack has something up his sleeve as well as in his pocket, believe me," whispered Billy Manners to Arthur.



CHAPTER XVII

THE MATTER SETTLED

Lessons were resumed and no more was said concerning the charge against Jack or any of the boys having the same initials, Sawyer and Sharpe being ready to turn out their desks for the doctor's satisfaction but not being required to do so.

Jack's friends did not believe in his guilt, even without his saying that the book was not his and they all regarded the affair as a very clumsy one.

"Whoever it was ought to know that Jack was not in Caesar," said Harry. "If he had put in a translation of something Jack was doing at this time there would have been more reason."

"And nobody sends an anonymous letter who has any spunk," muttered Billy Manners. "The doctor would have done right to have paid no attention to it but he is a good old fellow and wants to do right by all."

"I'd like to know what Jack is going to do about it," thought Dick. "He won't let it rest. I have an idea who did this for it was just his clumsy way of working that betrays him but I won't say anything."

When the forenoon recess arrived, the boys generally went out upon the campus but Jack went straight to the cellar where the negro coachman and general caretaker was at work cleaning up.

"What do you do with the papers and stuff you sweep up of a morning, Bucephalus?" asked Jack.

"Ah gather them in a receptickle fo' de puppose, sah, and den Ah communicate dem to de fiah, sah," answered the man.

"Have you done so as yet?"

"Ah have not yet consigned the rubbish to the fiah, sah. Dere it is in dem baskets yondah. You done lose something, sah?"

"No, I want to find something," replied Jack.

He went over to the waste paper baskets standing on the floor in one corner and began to turn out their contents.

"The fellow may have torn out the fly leaf before," he thought, "but it looks like a fresh tear. If so, and he did not keep the leaf or throw it away somewhere it will probably be here."

Turning out the bits of torn paper, old exercises and other things, Jack looked carefully at every scrap in search of the missing fly leaf.

"It's only a fool who would put his name in a translation, to betray him at any time," he mused, "but there are just such fools in the world."

There were many bits of paper which were obviously not the one he wanted and he passed them over rapidly and threw them aside.

He came upon more than one crumpled bit and picked them up but upon smoothing them out found that they were not the thing he wanted.

At length he saw a tight ball of crumpled paper which he was about to pass over as being nothing and then took up and unrolled carefully.

Smoothing it out he saw that it was a piece of book paper and was written on.

When it was nicely smoothed out and laid upon the inside of the book found in his desk and now produced from his pocket, he read the following inscription written in a scrawly hand:

"This book is the property of Peter Herring, Hilltop. Don't steal."

The torn edges fitted perfectly and the letters remaining on the inner edge of the leaf were followed regularly by those on the other side.

"That accuses Peter Herring all right," said Jack. "This is his book and if he did not put it in my desk who would? At any rate, it will be safe enough to make the accusation."

Putting the book back in his pocket, the torn leaf being now in its place, Jack went up stairs and out upon the grounds.

There were some of his chums at a little distance and Herring and Merritt were just going around the corner of the building toward the barn, being evidently engaged in earnest conversation.

Jack waited a minute and then followed them into the barn.

"Maybe it didn't work all right," Herring was saying, "but folks'll suspect him just the same."

"It wouldn't have went all right if I hadn't seen your name in it," snapped Merritt, "and made you tear it out before you slipped it in his desk last night."

"That's all right, he didn't see it and I did tear it out."

"Burn it up?"

"I guess so. Anyhow, no one won't find it and if they do so long as it ain't in the book—what the mischief!"

Herring suddenly found a book placed in front of his nose and, turning his head quickly, saw Jack Sheldon standing behind him.

"They will know that it belongs to this particular book now, won't they, when the edges match so perfectly, Herring?" asked Jack. "You were very clumsy in putting a Caesar in my desk when I am not studying it and more so in having your name in it."

Herring turned crimson and tried to snatch the book out of Jack's hand.

"You can have it now, for I no longer have any use for it," said the boy, slapping Herring's face with the book, "and now I am going to give you the thrashing you have so long deserved."

"You are, eh?" snarled Herring, backing away.

"Yes. It is the only thing you understand."

"You see fair play, Ern," blustered the bully.

Jack only smiled and then without further notice attacked his enemy and administered what he had promised, a sound thrashing.

In a very few minutes he forced Herring to cry for a respite and to acknowledge that he was beaten.

"I could make you apologize before the doctor and the whole school," said Jack, as he heard the bell ring to call the boys back to their duties, "but there is no shaming a fellow who is without shame and the way I have taken is much more efficacious and you will remember it."

Then Jack left the barn and went back to the building, meeting Percival and Billy Manners at the door.

"Where have you been, Jack?" asked Dick.

"Wrestling with a passage from Caesar," said Jack, with a laugh.

"Did you get the best of it?"

"I think I did."

"Yes, but you are not studying Caesar. What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you later if you don't guess," and Jack passed on and into the room and took his accustomed seat.

Merritt came in rather late and some of the boys noticed that he looked excited over something.

It was nearly ten minutes before Herring took his seat and then it was seen that his face was wet and evidently lately washed and that there was a discoloration around his nose and another under one of his eyes.

"Hello! I guess he has been wrestling with something, too," thought Percival. "I wonder if it had anything to do with Caesar?"

"You are very late, Herring," said the doctor. "What is the reason?"

"Fell down and bruised my face," muttered Herring. "Had to wash up before I came in. My nose bled."

"See that it does not occur again," said Dr. Wise, using the customary phrase which had become a habit with him.

"It will if he fools with Jack Sheldon," chuckled Percival. "I'll bet anything that he was the one who put the Caesar in Jack's desk and got paid up for it."

Neither Percival nor any of the other boys had a chance to speak to Jack about the matter until dinner when a knot of them interviewed him at the door of the dining hall.

"Were you the cause of Herring's being late to class after recess, Jack?" asked Percival.

"Did you find out anything?" put in Harry. "I had a bet that it was Pete who tried to undermine you in his generally clumsy fashion."

"The affair is settled, boys," said Jack, quietly. "We need not think any more about it."

And that was all he would say, for all their coaxing.



CHAPTER XVIII

AN EXPLORING TRIP THROUGH THE WOODS

After school was over that day Percival came to Jack and said:

"We are going off into the woods, some of us, to explore things generally. Won't you come along, Jack?"

"Of course he will," put in Billy Manners, who came along at that moment with Harry and Arthur. "He will want to make some more discoveries to add to those he has already made. The place is new to us where we are going and, consequently, will be new to him."

"We are going into a part of the woods beyond here that is new to us, and you will enjoy it as well as the rest," said Percival.

"I shall be glad to go with you, Dick," said Jack. "Are you going to take your lunch, Billy? Shall we be away as long as that?"

The other boys now noticed that Billy carried a black box under his arm, but until Jack had spoken of it they had not observed it.

"That is not a lunch box," laughed Billy, "but you have eyes all the same. No one else noticed it."

"What is it, anyhow?" asked Kenneth Blaisdell, one of the new boys at the Academy. "Box for botanic specimens?"

"No, it is not and I am not going to satisfy your curiosity by telling you what it is just now," chuckled Billy. "Come on, Dick, we have a large enough party now."

There were Percival, Jack, Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners, Blaisdell and Jasper Sawyer, the boy whose initials were the same as Jack's, seven in all, and each of the party well liked by all the rest.

They set off without delay, and passing through the woods back of the Academy, and avoiding the ravine down which Jack had fallen, kept on down the hill on the side away from the station at the foot, and then up another and through a very rough, extremely wild section, where travel at times was most difficult.

"There is not much wonder that we have not been here before," laughed Billy Manners, as he sat on a rock and puffed for breath after they had gone some distance through the thicket, and stopped in an opening where the travel was better.

"Yes, we should have brought axes with us," said Percival. "I had no idea the country through here was so rough."

"Well, the doctor said it was and so did some of the fellows," said Arthur; "so we cannot say anything."

"Did they tell you about this gully?" asked Jack, who had gone ahead a few paces, and paused in front of a deep gully stretching right across their path, and presenting an obstacle which there seemed to be no way of getting over.

The gully was quite wide in front of them, and to the left extended into the woods as far as they could see, while on the right it presently ended at a great mass of ledge rock, which towered well above their heads, and was crowned with trees, some of them very big, while at different points, as far as the bottom, there were trees of various sizes growing from crevices in the rock.

"H'm! I guess they did not know about this," muttered Percival. "This gully can be bridged all right, and it will be a nice job for us; just the sort I like, but in the meantime, how are we going to get over and go on with our exploring?"

"You ought to know that," laughed Billy Manners. "You are an engineer, you know. A little thing like that ought not to bother you."

"Well, it does all the same," said Percival with some impatience, as Billy took the black box from under his arm. "What are you going to do now, you funny fellow?"

"Take a picture of that ledge," said Billy, looking around for a flat rock or a stump upon which to place his box.

"Wait a minute till we get back," said Blaisdell, who had joined Jack at the gully. "It looks to me as if there was a cave down there. There is some sort of an opening at the bottom of the ledge, seems to me."

"Yes, so there is. I never noticed it before. How are you going to get a picture, Billy? That is no camera you have. Where is your lens?"

"Haven't any! I can take a picture without a lens, only it will require more time to make the exposure."

"Take a photograph without a lens?" said Percival in a tone of doubt, mixed with scorn. "You must be crazy!"

Several of the boys thought the same as Dick, and laughed heartily at what they considered one of Billy's harum scarum schemes.

"Go ahead and laugh, boys," said the good-natured fellow, as he placed his small square box on top of a flat rock he had found, and pointed it toward the ledge at the foot of which Blaisdell had discovered his supposed cave entrance. "I know something that you fellows do not, and I am going to get a picture. The light is fine, for it just sifts nicely through the trees, and the sun is quite high enough yet."

"Yes, but Billy, if you have no lens nor shutter, how are you going to take a photograph?" asked Blaisdell. "That doesn't look like anything but a square box."

"That is all it is, but it is a camera just the same. Did you never hear tell of a pinhole camera, my boy?"

"No, I did not. What is it?"

"I have a plate in this box, and it is set at what they call a universal focus. That is, I can take a picture of something not too close, and one at a distance. The box is lined with black paper, and in front there is a very small hole, now covered by a flap of the same stuff. This hole will admit the light fast enough, and yet not too fast, and as my plate is sensitized, I can get a picture even if I have no lens. Did you ever see a 'camera obscura,' as they call them?"

"Oh, you mean one of those things that take a panoramic view of the beach and everything in sight? People get shown up sometimes when they don't know it."

"Yes, that's the thing. You don't get a real photograph there, but you see everything shown up on a table, as the thing at the top revolves. Well, I will get a picture with my pinhole camera even if I have no lens. Why, they used to sell these things, maybe they do yet."

"Why, yes, seems to me I have seen something about them in the advertisements."

"No doubt," and Billy, having seen that his out-of-the-way camera was perfectly level, carefully removed the black flap from the tiny hole in the front of the box and said:

"That's all right. You fellows cannot get in front of it, and so there will be no harm done. It will take some time to get a picture, but I will have it all the same. The light is fine and I can afford to wait."

"There's a cave down there all right, Dick," said Jack. "Don't you think so?"

"Yes, it looks like a cave," said Percival. "How would you like to go down and explore it?"

"All right, if we can manage it. Got a light? We can make torches I suppose. There is plenty of pine wood about. Anyhow, I have my pocket flash with me."

"You fellows can go down there if you like," laughed Arthur, "but none of it for me."

"Or for me either," said Harry.

"Come on, Dick," said Jack. "Here is a good place to get down, I think."

The two boys supplied themselves with stout sticks with which to aid them in getting down, and then began to make the descent, the other boys sitting or standing around.

Step by step, from rock to rock, and from one tree root to another the two chums made their way down into the gully and toward the hole in the face of the ledge, which they could at length see was of considerable depth, and high enough for them to pass through without stooping.

They finally reached the bottom, and then were not far from the hole into which they made their way, finding that it extended for some distance at an incline part of the way, and then on a level, as it seemed.

"There are lots of these holes in the Hudson valley," said Jack, "and sometimes they are interesting, while at other times they are nothing but holes, don't go very far, and have nothing in them after all."

"You don't expect stalactites or anything of that sort, do you, Jack?" asked Dick.

"No, for this is not a limestone region, like that in Kentucky or in Virginia, where there are some of the famous caves. However, it will be worth our while to go down here, I think, or I would not have undertaken it. We do not need to go very far. This place may be known, although the people in the woods hereabout don't take much stock in such things, as they say and think tourists and summer boarders who want to explore them just a lot of crazy fools."

"It's an easy thing to call a man a fool because he can understand or like things that you don't," laughed Dick.

The boys at length got so far into the hole in the rocks that they had to make use of Jack's pocket electric torch, and they proceeded, still on a down grade, and finding the way a bit rough in spots, but at last finding it better traveling and more level.

They had turned somewhat, and looking back, could not see the entrance where they had come in, nor the gully beyond, nor any light, Percival saying with a bit of a shudder:

"H'm! it is a bit creepy in here, isn't it, Jack?"

"Oh, I don't know," laughed Jack. "I think other people have been here before us, Dick. I can see black spots on the rock overhead, as if smoke from torches had made them. Then the rock under our feet is worn somewhat. Some one has been in here before, although not recently."

"H'm! you notice everything, as Ken Blaisdell said just now," laughed Percival. "Does anything escape your notice?"

"Well, Dick, I have had to keep my eyes about me pretty much all of my life in order to make my way, and I suppose it has got to be a habit, but am I any more observant than most boys? They say that little children notice everything, certainly a good deal more than their parents like, sometimes. Perhaps I have not gotten over my childish habits."

"Oh, I don't believe you were one of those young nuisances that call attention to everything, the grandmother's wig, the maiden aunt's false teeth and the like," chuckled Percival. "Yes, I think you are particularly observant and—hello! what's that?" as a dull sound broke upon their ears.

"It might be thunder," said Jack. "It sounds somewhere behind us. That's all right. This place begins to look interesting, Dick. Suppose we go on."

The floor of the cave was quite level here, and the place wider and higher than before, so that it was really much more a cave than a mere hole in the ground, and the boys pushed on, having plenty of light from Jack's torch, and being in no danger of stumbling or falling.

They pushed on for a few hundred feet, and then came upon a narrow passage where they at first thought the cave ended.

Jack flashed his light ahead of him, and saw that there was evidently a chamber beyond the passage, and in a few moments they came out in it, and, to the amazement of both, saw a rude table and a bench, and on the floor some old clothes, a black mask or two, some burglars' tools and a coarse sack.

"Hello! here's a discovery, Jack," cried Percival. "I shouldn't wonder if this was some more of the plunder taken by the man with the white mustache and his accomplices."

"It certainly looks like it," said Jack, examining the sack and finding nothing in it; "but it strikes me that I can see a light ahead of us. Suppose we go on."

"All right," agreed Dick, and Jack led the way forward.



CHAPTER XIX

MORE THAN ONE WAY OUT

Pushing on, Jack made his way, followed by Dick, through a narrow passage and out into an open space where they could see the sky and a lot of trees and bushes above them with a rough path leading to the ground above.

"Well, we have found the way out, as well as the way in," said Jack, "and we might as well go out this way as to return the way we came."

"But can we find the boys?"

"Certainly. You have a pocket compass?"

"No, I have not."

"Well, I have one or had, and anyhow, I don't think we need it. It is daylight, and we know the direction we want to go. We should not have any trouble in finding our way back."

"How are you going to do it when there is no road that we know of?" asked Percival, as Jack began making his way toward the top of the unnatural bowl in which they found themselves.

"I'll show you, Dick," Jack replied, pushing on, now using the stick to assist him and now getting along without it.

They reached the top at last, and then Jack began examining the trees about him, and presently said, pointing off into the woods:

"That is the south, and the boys are in that direction."

"How do you know it is the south?" asked Percival.

"Because the trees are more worn on this side, from frost and exposure. Look on the other side and you will see a difference."

"Yes, I see it. The other side is smooth, while this is rough and of a different color. And that is the north side, is it? I have noticed trees looking like that, but did not think of settling direction by it."

"Yes, you can, and you will never go wrong. Come on, I think we can find the boys all right," and with a look at the sun, which could be seen above the treetops, Jack started off, Percival following.

Jack knew from the position of the sun and from the exposed side of the trees which way to go, and he pushed on in a straight line without deviating a foot to either side toward where he judged he would find the boys, keeping an eye for ledge rock and listening for any sounds which would tell him that he was nearing the other end of the cave.

In the meantime, unknown to the two chums, the boys remaining at the gully were having a bit of excitement of their own, and were seriously alarmed about the two in the cave.

The sound that Dick and Jack had heard in the cave was not thunder, as Jack had suggested, but something entirely different.

When the boys had been in the cave a short time, there came a sudden rustling on a part of the ledge Billy had aimed his camera at, and all of a sudden a great boulder fell into the gully.

"Hello!" exclaimed Arthur. "That's bad. Who would have thought of it? Jack and Dick are shut in there!"

A considerable mass of earth had been carried down with the boulder, and now the entrance to the cave was completely filled by the rubbish.

"I am afraid they are shut in, Art," said Blaisdell seriously.

"Who would have thought of that?" cried Harry, going forward and looking into the gully. "Certainly Jack did not, or he would not have gone in there."

Blaisdell and three or four others stepped to the brink of the gully, and looked down, as the dust began to settle.

"It's closed up all right," said Billy Manners, covering the aperture of his pinhole camera.

"Do you mean the mouth of the cave or your picture box?" asked Blaisdell. "You are a funny fellow, Billy."

"Both," said Billy tersely.

"I guess it is as far as the cave goes," remarked Jasper Sawyer. "Now the question is how are we going to get the boys out?"

"H'm! we've got to take away that stuff, I suppose," said Harry. "It won't be so hard getting down there, but there's a lot of stuff to get rid of. Come on, boys, get down there and set to work."

"My! but there's a lot of this stuff!" exclaimed Sawyer, getting to work. "I wonder if we can get rid of it before the boys get back? Do you suppose they heard the noise and knew what it was?"

"How would they know?" asked Arthur, throwing aside a lot of stones and earth. "The place is probably pretty big, or they would have been back by this time."

There were four or five boys at work, but as Harry had remarked, there was a lot of the earth and stones to remove, and they were more or less in each other's way.

"We might call to them," suggested Jasper Sawyer at length. "If they are not too far off they will hear us."

"That's all right," agreed Blaisdell, and he and the rest of the boys shouted at the top of their voices.

There was no reply, and, indeed, Jack and Dick did not hear them, being at some distance from the mouth of the cave at this moment.

The boys presently shouted again, but still there was no response, and Harry said in great disgust:

"We are only wasting our breath. They can't hear through all this rubbish, and they may be a good way off. I should not wonder if the cave was a big one. There are some such in the mountains along the Hudson valley, especially in these counties. Nobody bothers with them very much, but they're here all the same."

The boys kept hard at work removing the debris that had fallen into the entrance of the cave, but some of this consisted of great rocks, which were impossible to get rid of with the means at their disposal, and Harry presently growled, as he wiped his perspiring forehead with one hand while he leaned against the ledge with the other:

"We'll have to blow this stuff up. If it were only earth and gravel we could do something, but there are rocks as big as a house in the hole, and we can never get rid of them."

Several of these boulders had been uncovered by throwing aside the earth, so that Harry's statement was seen not to be an exaggerated one, and Arthur replied:

"We have nothing to blow it up with. Would prying do any good, do you think? We have no bars, but we can get plenty of stout poles from the trees, and they will help us."

"I shouldn't wonder. It is clear enough that we cannot do much with the shovels alone."

"Hark!" cried young Sawyer, who was too little to do a great amount of the kind of work the boys were doing at the moment, but who seemed to be on the alert; "don't you hear something?"

"Keep still, boys," said Billy Manners. "Sawyer has heard something. There is not much of him, but it is all good stuff."

"Keep still!" said the smaller boy impatiently, and there was silence.

In a few moments there was an unmistakable shout heard, distant, it was true, but still a well-defined shout.

"That's Percival!" cried young Sawyer.

"Hello!" shouted Harry. "Keep her up, boys! Give a good shout all of us. Now then!"

All of the boys shouted at the same time, and then kept quiet to hear the answering shout.

"All right, we are coming!" they heard Jack shout in a clear, shrill tone, which had great carrying power.

"Where are they?" asked Billy. "That does not sound from the cave. Hello! Are you in the cave, you fellows?"

"No, we found a way out," came the answer in a few moments.

"Bully!" shouted Billy. "That lets you out, boys. We don't need to dig any more."

The boys in the gully scrambled out of it in great glee, and then set up a shout which was soon answered at a less distance than before, and shortly after that they heard Jack's voice from somewhere above them saying:

"Hello, you fellows! We are up here. How are we going to get down?"

The boys all looked up and saw Jack Sheldon and Dick Percival standing on top of the ledge, at the foot of which was the entrance of the cave.

"How did you get there?" asked Blaisdell. "We were trying to dig you out, but we are glad we don't have to."

"Dig us out?" asked Percival in astonishment.

"Yes. When the boulder fell it sent down a lot of stones and earth, and completely blocked the entrance of the cave."

"Then it was fortunate we found the other entrance," said Jack.

"Another one?"

"Yes, in the woods over yonder, a wild place, wilder than this. We'll tell you all about it when we get down."

Jack and Percival now quickly joined their companions, who were eager to learn of their experiences in the cave.

The boys were greatly interested in hearing of what Jack and Dick had discovered in the cave, and speculated about the presence of the burglars' tools, some of them wondering if the bank robbers made the cave their headquarters, and why the tools had not been taken away before.

"Well, if the place is closed I shall have a picture of it at any rate," declared Billy.

"Which cannot amount to much," laughed Harry, "seeing that your camera has neither shutter nor lens."

"Never you mind," said Billy. "That camera of mine is going to surprise you boys."



CHAPTER XX

WHAT BILLY'S CAMERA REVEALED

As it was now getting well along in the afternoon, and as the way back was a difficult one, Percival and Jack decided that they would better return without making any further explorations.

"We have found out a lot that we did not know, anyhow," said Percival, "and we can come here again."

"Certainly I never knew about that cave," remarked Arthur, "although I have been here two years."

"That is not so much to be wondered at," declared Harry. "The place is hard to get at and out of the way, and I don't believe you could get many of the boys to come here even if you told them there was a cave to be seen. I don't think I would care to come again."

"I would," said Sawyer, "but it is not an easy job all the same."

"Bother the thing!" sputtered Billy Manners. "It is nothing but a hiding place for burglars and thieves. Pity you did not find some more of the stolen property, Jack."

"It has probably been taken out. They could afford to leave their tools behind, but they would take everything else."

The boys talked about the place as they made their way back to the Academy, which they reached shortly before supper, and all agreed that it was rather too great an undertaking to visit the cave again, all being tired and glad to rest after their tramp.

"I want to see how my picture turned out, Jack," said Billy Manners after supper when it was quite dark. "Then I want to get the laugh on those fellows that said my makeshift was no good. I know it is."

"All right, Billy," laughed Jack. "I can fix you up a dark room in the cottage. I have developers and all that, though I suppose you have also."

"Yes, I have everything. Have you a camera, Jack? You never said anything about it."

"Well, I have not had much occasion to say anything or to use it, but I have one. Come ahead, get your plate and we will develop it."

On the way to the cottage they met Dick Percival, who was greatly interested when he heard what they were going to do and said:

"I'd like to see you develop that plate, for, to tell the truth, I don't have much faith in these photographic freaks. Do you think there will be anything on the plate, Jack?"

"Yes," said Jack shortly.

"All right, then. If you have faith in it I have nothing to say."

Reaching the room in the cottage, Jack locked the door to keep out all possible intruders, got out his ruby lamp and developers, and set to work.

Billy had faith in his pinhole camera, because it was his. Jack was certain that he would get a picture, because he knew about such things, and Dick was interested because Jack was, and therefore the three watched the process of developing with considerable interest.

Jack had running water and all the facilities for doing good work, and it was also apparent that he had done a good deal of it.

"By Jove! you are a wonder, Jack," laughed Percival. "I am all the time finding out new things that you can do. If we were not with you so much we would not know how much you can do. You never tell about it."

"What is the use?" said Jack quietly. "If I can accomplish anything it is bound to be found out some time."

"Of course, but most fellows would tell you ahead that they were going to do so and so and make a lot of talk about it. You just go ahead and do it without making any fuss."

"Why, no, of course not, but it is so different from the ordinary fellow's way of doing things."

The boys watched the picture appear on Billy's plate, and the funny fellow said with a grin of great satisfaction:

"There is something there all right, Jack. It is good and sharp, too, if I know anything. Why, you can see each individual leaf and the rocks stand out fine."

"Yes, I think the boys are going to be surprised," declared Jack, as he watched the developing, and removed the plate from the bath just at the right time and put it in another tray.

After fixing the image and washing the plate well with several waters, having everything convenient to his hand, he examined the plate carefully by the white light, which could do it no harm, and suddenly said in a tone of the greatest astonishment:

"My word, Billy, we are going to surprise somebody and no mistake. You don't know everything that is on this plate."

"Well, what is it?" Billy and Percival both asked, being greatly excited by Jack's impressive tone.

"I'll show you shortly. I am going to make an enlargement of this so that you will have no trouble in seeing just what I see."

"Yes, but Jack, can't you show us?" asked Percival with some impatience. "Must you make a secret of it?"

"For a little while, Dick," laughed Jack; "but you won't say anything when I show you the enlargement. You will be perfectly satisfied at having waited a little."

"All right," muttered both boys.

Jack had all the appliances for making an enlargement, and he could do it as well by night as in daylight, having flash powders which would give an instant's light or be continued for as long as he chose, together with plates, paper and everything convenient.

The boys watched him at work and were greatly interested, now and then catching the sound of the Hilltop boys singing outside, but generally paying little attention to anything except what was going on just around them.

In the course of something more than an hour Jack had completed his work and showed a much larger print of Billy's pinhole photograph than was possible from the original plate, and also a print from the latter.

"Now look at these two, first the little one and then the big," he said, "and tell me what is the difference."

"You've got an eight by ten, and mine is less than a four by five," answered Billy. "The figures are naturally four times as large. By Jinks! you have a handsome picture, Jack."

"Yes, but tell me what you see on one that you don't see on the other. You should see it on both, of course, but it stands out stronger in the enlargement, as it naturally would."

Percival looked at the larger picture and said:

"Hello! there is a man looking out from among the rocks on the ledge. Did you know he was there, Billy?"

"No, I did not. He must have kept pretty still, for that was a long time exposure. He is not as strong as the objects around him, however. How is that, Jack? H'm! I know. He came in after I had started to take the scene."

"That's it, and he kept still because he wanted to hear what you boys were talking about, and did not wish to be discovered himself. Do you see him on the smaller print, Billy?"

"Yes, now, but I did not at first. Golly! but you have eyes, Jack! You saw this on the plate?"

"Yes, and that is why I wished to get the enlargement. Do you recognize the man, boys?"

"I never saw him," said Percival, "but if that is not the man with the white mustache and the black eyebrows I am very much mistaken. My! but how he glares!"

"It is the man with the white mustache," said Jack. "I have reason to recognize him. That is the bank robber. He is glaring, as you say, Dick. There was something on his mind. What do you suppose it was?"

"I am sure I don't know. Do you suppose he was afraid we might find his hiding place. By Jove! we found the burglars' tools, Jack, and now you have found the burglar himself on Billy's plate."

"Yes, and you said there would not be anything on it," laughed the good-natured fellow.

"Why, no, Billy, I did not altogether say——"

"No, you didn't say it, but you intimated it just the same. Well, my pinhole camera has turned out all right, hasn't it?"

"Yes, and I must say that I am surprised."

"The rock fell down shortly after we had gone inside the cave, Billy?" asked Jack.

"Yes. None of us had any suspicion that such a thing would happen, and we were very anxious about you. I don't see now why it should have happened. We have not had any rains to loosen things."

"I will tell you how it happened," said Jack earnestly. "Your man here, with his fierce eyes, like those of a hunted wild beast, was plotting our death when he shoved down that boulder, for it was he who shoved it down I am certain. He probably did not know of the other exit and imagined that we would be imprisoned with no way of getting out."

"He looks as if he wished you and everybody else dead," said Billy. "He has a face to make you have bad dreams. Well, we have proved two things to-day."

"That your pinhole camera is all right," said Percival, "and that this mysterious man with the white mustache is still in the neighborhood. H'm! I should think he would avoid it."

"I hoped he might," said Jack musingly. "It is clear enough from this print that he did not mean any good to you and me, Dick."

"Yes, and as Billy says, his face is one to haunt you. Well, if he is hanging around these woods we don't care to make any more exploring trips until we are sure he is out of them. What are you going to do with the big print, Jack?"

"Keep it if the man makes any more trouble," said Jack shortly. "It will be of use to detectives in identifying him."

"I suppose I had better not show my print?" said Billy questioningly. "You would rather I would not? I don't know what you are to this fellow, Jack, and I don't want to know. You say he is not your father, and that is enough for me."

"No, he is not," said Jack, "and just now I don't care to say any more about it. Show your plate if you want to convince the boys that your odd sort of camera can do something. They may not notice the man on it. They will probably simply notice the trees and rocks, which are very sharp and distinct."

"All right," said Billy. "I would like to show it to those wiseacres just to convince them that the thing was all right, and to get the laugh on them."

"Revenge is sweet," laughed Percival.

"Of course it is," said Billy, "but I guess we fellows had better get to bed or the doctor will be giving us fits. Is there time to show this picture to the fellows?"

"I should think so," replied Jack. "I will keep the enlargement in case I need it, and I would rather you did not say anything about it to the boys."

"Of course not!" said Billy promptly.

Billy and Percival now took their leave and Jack put away his developing outfit, locked the enlargement in his bureau drawer and turned on the lights and threw aside the curtains, so that any one in any of the other cottages or in the Academy could see him.

"Still in the neighborhood," he muttered, as he sat by the window and looked out on the calm Autumn night. "I wish he would leave it. I am not safe as long as he remains. At any rate, I shall do my duty as I have always done it, no matter what happens."

An hour later Jack went to bed, and no one who saw him at that time would have imagined that anything was on his mind, his face was so calm and tranquil.



CHAPTER XXI

A PUZZLING AFFAIR

The mysterious stranger with the white mustache and dark hair who had caused so much speculation among the Hilltop boys had not been seen since the second attempt to rob the Riverton bank and none of those most interested knew where he was.

His confederate, badly wounded at the time, was in jail and likely to remain there for some time, but of his principal nothing was known.

He had made his escape and had probably left the region for good and all, being satisfied that a third attempt to get at the money of the bank would be fatal.

The Hilltop boys were anxious to know what relation he bore to Jack Sheldon, who, it will be remembered, had been visibly agitated when he was first mentioned but as the boy did not seem inclined to enlighten them they did not ask him any more questions.

Herring avoided Jack after the stirring scene in the barn but neglected no opportunity to speak ill or slightingly of the boy to his cronies and to Jack's friends when he dared.

There were not many of these occasions, however, for the first time that he spoke slurringly of Jack to Billy Manners, that fun-loving young gentleman said hotly:

"Look here, Herring, I'll pickle you if I hear you talk that way of Jack Sheldon again. A word to the wise is sufficient."

Billy was not as big nor as strong as Jack but there was a determination in his look which Herring did not care to see there nor to provoke and he laughed carelessly and retorted:

"Oh, well, you don't need to get mad about it. I was only joking about it."

"I don't see anything funny in any such jokes," returned Billy, "and I would advise you to take them to a market where they are better appreciated than they are here."

"Ah, you think Sheldon is a lot," sneered Herring, "but he isn't any better than any one else."

"Maybe not. It depends who the any one else is," laughed Billy.

From the words that the bully dropped to his associates, however, it was clear that he meant mischief to Jack and would pay off his supposed debts as soon as opportunity offered and there was the least chance of detection.

There were examinations coming on and Jack was getting ready for them, devoting all of his spare time to studying so that he would be able to pass with the greatest credit to himself and his instructors.

The next number of the Hilltop Gazette would give the results of the examination but there was other matter to be prepared for it, the standings being the last matter to go in.

On the afternoon before the examinations were to begin Jack borrowed Percival's runabout and set out for Riverton with the copy for the school paper and something he had written for the weekly News, furnishing something now every week.

It was rather late when he started, as he had been busy up to the last moment and when he left the office after seeing Mr. Brooke and looking over the matter already set up it was growing dark, the sun being already behind the hills.

He would be back in time for supper, however, and as he had his lights in good order he had no fear of being out after dark.

He had left the town and was about to put on speed so as to carry him easily up a hill just ahead of him when he saw a man suddenly come around a turn just ahead of him.

He slacked up in an instant and then heard a sharp whistle behind him and at the next moment heard rapid footsteps, the man in front suddenly running toward him.