rcival.
"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 bee