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 i