on't know my own story," said the boy with a grin. "Only part of it.
Mrs. Farley's been awful good to me, takin' care of me an' all that. But
she wouldn't tell me how I got hurt or where I was when I woke up."

"Naturally. Well, we must piece it out among us. Now, Bailey, you were
working over your reel the night the meteor fell, when--"

"What meteor? I don't know anything about a meteor."

"Of course you don't," said Average Jones laughing. "Stupid of me. For
the moment I had forgotten that you were out of the world then. Well,
about nine o'clock of the night you got the reel, you looked out of your
window and saw a queer light over at the Tuxall place."

"That's right. But say, Mr. Jones, how do you know about the light?"

"What else but a light could you have seen, on a pitch-black night?"
counter-questioned Average Jones with a smile. "And it must have been
something unusual, or you wouldn't have dropped everything to go to it."

"That's what!" corroborated the boy. "A kind of flame shot up from the
ground. Then it spread a little. Then it went out. And there were people
running around it."

"Ah! Some one must have got careless with the oil," observed Average
Jones.

"That fool Tuxall!" broke in Farley with an oath. "It was him gummed the
whole game."

"Mr. Tuxall, I regret to say," remarked Average Jones, "has left for
parts unknown, so the Harwick authorities inform me, probably foreseeing
a charge of arson."

"Arson?" repeated the Reverend Mr. Prentice in astonishment.

"Of course. Only oil and matches could have made a barn flare up, after
a three-days' rain, as his did. Now, Bailey, to continue. You ran across
the fields to the Tuxall place and went around--let me see; the wind had
shifted to the northeast--yes; to the northeast of the barn and quite a
distance away. There you saw a man at work in his shirt."

"Well-I'll-be-jiggered!" said the boy in measured tones. "Where were you
hiding, Mr. Jones?"

"Not behind the tree there, anyway," returned the Ad-Visor with a
chuckle. "There is a tree there, I suppose?"

"Yes; and there was something alive tied up in it with a rope."

"Well, not exactly alive," returned Average Jones, "though the mistake
is a natural one."

"I tell you, I know," persisted Bailey. "While Mr. and Mrs. Farley were
workin' over some kind of a box, I shinned up the tree."

"Bold young adventurer! And what did you find?"

"One of the limbs was shakin' and thrashin'. I cr