uch a prominent part.

"I wonder now," Toby was saying at one time, "whether the Chief of
Police got a clue like we did that'd fetch him up in this region of the
country with a posse, meaning to try to round up this escaped rascal?"

There was a variety of opinions concerning this point, some believing
one way and the rest having contrary views.

"It would be too bad, now," said Ted, "if they managed to haul both of
them up before we could get Hen in hand, and hear hith thory of what
happened."

"That's a fact," added Lil Artha. "We know the Chief, and that he'd
take Hen back to town just like he was a real criminal. No matter what
excuse the boy'd try to give, the Chief wouldn't listen, leaving all
that for the Justice of the Peace before whom he'd take his prisoners.
Boys, we've just got to find Hen first; that's all there is to it."

That seemed to be the consensus of opinion among them. By degrees they
had come to believe that Hen Condit must be under a spell, to have
acted as he did. Nothing else would explain the mystery, for Hen had
always been reckoned a mild, inoffensive sort of fellow, one of the
last boys in Hickory Ridge to do anything so terrible as commit a
robbery.

"That's just what it is!" declared Toby, as they again talked it all
over in hopes of getting a better conception of the truth, "the man
who's got Hen must be one of those terrible hypnotists you read about.
I saw one down in the city last summer at a show, and he made fellows
do the most ridiculous things anybody ever heard tell of."

"Such as what?" asked Lil Artha, looking as though he might be
skeptical.

"Why, one boy thought he was a goat, and ran all around on his hands
and feet, hunting for tin cans and old shoes to eat. Another believed
he was a dog baying at the full moon, and I nearly took a fit listening
to him whoop. Then there was a third fellow who believed he was made
of iron, so he stretched himself from one chair to another, and three
men stood right in his middle; and he didn't break, either. Say, it
was the greatest sight you ever saw."

"Fakes, all rank fakes!" snorted Lil Artha; "every one of those boys
was a confederate of the impostor. You notice they never come to small
places where everybody knows everybody else, but show in cities, where
a new audience comes each night. I'd like to see a circus like that,
just to laugh; but you couldn't get me to believe in hypnotism worth a
cent."

"Well, then,