e, there
won't be any burglars around, now that we're all ready for them."

However, burglars are a little uncertain in their ways, and it is not
well to feel too secure. Perhaps it was even while the boys were talking
that two rough-looking fellows had their heads together in the back room
of a disreputable saloon in Westbridge making plans. One was older than
the other, and the younger had a copy of the Westbridge _Eagle_ in his
hands, occasionally reading a little here and there. These two fellows
were burglars in a small way; and burglars, like other people, get a
great deal of information out of the newspapers. When they see that
"John Smith and family have gone to the Catskills; the house is closed
for the summer," they find it more interesting news than the latest
election returns.

"Oh, pshaw!" the younger burglar exclaimed, as his eye fell upon the
paragraph about the boys' telegraph line--only he used language better
suited to a burglar sitting in a saloon; "those fellows have put up a
burglar alarm."

"What, at the three houses!" the other exclaimed. "Let me see;" and he
snatched the paper rudely from the younger man's hand. "Oh, my, my, my!"
he went on, after he had read the paragraph; "that's the neatest thing I
ever saw in my life." And he leaned back in his chair, and chuckled as
merrily as if he had been an honest man.

"I don't see anything to laugh about," said the younger. "We've spent
over a week getting the lay of the land out there, and now all that
labor is lost. We'll have to try somewhere else."

"Will we?" said the older man, chuckling again. "You only think so
because you're young at the business. Jest leave this thing to me, my
child. I know'd we'd have an easy job out there, but I didn't think
they'd take so much trouble to make it easier for us."

The rest of their talk was in too low a tone to be overheard; but about
one o'clock the next morning Tom Dailey and Harry Barker were both
aroused at the same moment by the furious clicking of their sounders.
"Td," "Hb," the instruments were calling, and in a second or two both
boys were sending back the answering,

"Ay, ay! Ay, ay!"

"Help! Burglars! Jb," both sounders said at once. The message was
repeated, and then all was still. Evidently Joe Bailey had left the key
and taken up his baseball bat.

It was quick work for Tom and Harry to arouse their fathers and tell
them that there were burglars over at Baileys'. Hasty toilets were m