e pike that human accident that breathes like
a man and talks like a rabbit chased me eight miles there and back.
The first time I tried to approach the infernal house I fell over a
grindstone and signed checks in the gravel with my nose.
Hereafter, when you want a burglar, pick somebody your own size.
I'm going to hunt a hospital and get sewed together again."

I put on all steam and tried to square myself, but Bunch only shook
his head and said I was outlawed.

"You can't run on my race track," he exclaimed as he started for
the depot; "that last race was crooked and you stood in with the
dope mixer."

I watched him down the hill until he disappeared in the station,
then, sad at heart, I trudged back to the old homestead that had
caused all my trouble.

It was now broad daylight, but nowhere within my line of vision
could I get a peep of the doughty Diggs.

No doubt he was still cutting across lots trying to head off the
"maleyfactor."

CHAPTER V.

JOHN HENRY'S TELEGRAM.

When I reached the cottage I found all the members of my household
dressed for the day, and lined up on the piazza, eager for news
from the battlefield.

"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Uncle Peter, "the boy is bareheaded! Where's
your hat, John?"

"Mercy! I hope you're not scalped!" Aunt Martha cried,
sympathetically.

I explained that the desperado put up a stiff fight against Diggs
and myself and, warming up to the subject, I went into the details
of a hand to hand struggle that made them all shiver and blink
their lanterns.

When finally I finished with the statement that the robber knocked
us both down and had made a successful break for liberty. Uncle
Peter gave expression to a yell of dismay, and once again he and
his bow and arrow held a reunion.

Tacks suggested that we burn the house down so the burglar wouldn't
be able to find it if he came around after dark. I thought
extremely well of the suggestion, but didn't dare say so.

Aunt Martha had just about decided to untie a fit of hysterics,
when Clara J. reached for the kerosene bucket and threw oil on the
troubled waters.

"Let's drop all this nonsense about burglars and ghosts and go to
breakfast," she suggested. "I don't believe there ever was a ghost
within sixty miles of this house, and to save my soul I couldn't be
afraid of a burglar whose specialty consisted of falling in the
cellar and swearing till help came!"

After breakfast I was dragged away to the