fear of being heard, and
raced off along the road toward the sleeping town with all the speed
they could muster. Once they fancied they heard a voice call to them,
but this only increased their head-long flight. Their feet seemed
fairly to skim over the ground, and when they reached the main street
of the town they were breathless, exhausted and frightened almost past
speaking.

"Where--does--the sheriff--live?" panted Billiard, as they tore down
the last steep slope.

"Dunno," gasped Toady.

"Then how'll we find him?"

"Drug-store."

"It's shut."

"Ring the night bell."

And ring they did, sending peal after peal echoing through the silent
building until the sleepy proprietor, dishevelled and wrathy, stumbled
through the doorway, and demanded fiercely, "What the deuce is wanted?"

"The robbers--" half sobbed the boys.

"Well, they ain't here," snarled the angry druggist, not catching the
meaning of their words. "Now you hike for home and the next time you
want to play a practical joke----"

"Oh, this isn't a joke!" cried Toady imploringly. "We've found the
sure 'nough robbers, but----"

"We aren't big enough to capture them," finished Billiard.

"Aw, come off!" said the man, beginning to see from the boys' demeanor
that something was really wrong. "You are having a bad dream. How do
you happen to be wandering around town this time of night?"

"We dared each other to visit the haunted house to see if there was a
really ghost, like Susie said."

"And you found one, did you?" the druggist laughed sarcastically.

"Oh, this ain't a ghost. It's burglars, truly! They talked and we
heard what they said," cried Toady with convincing earnestness.

"And what _did_ they say?" persisted the druggist, though in a
different tone of voice.

Briefly they recounted their adventure in the vacant house, and as the
man listened he took down the telephone, said a few words which the
boys could not hear, and hung up the receiver again. Almost
immediately there was a sound of footsteps without, and an armed
citizen of Silver Bow appeared in the doorway, then another, and
another, until a score or more had gathered just outside the building.
There was a hasty consultation one with another, then the boys were
bidden to repeat the story they had told the druggist, and after the
men had heard the meagre details, the posse separated, vanishing one by
one in the blackness. But instinctively the boys knew that they