are warning us about? Why should we be
afraid of him?"

The stranger shook his head.

"It ain't quite the thing for me to tell," he said slowly. "You see
nothin' may come of it after all. Just you fellows mind what I say, and
keep your eyes open. When you find your friends paddle on down the
creek for a good way before you camp. Good-by, I'm off."

He turned abruptly away, and hurried through the woods toward the base
of the hill.

Clay called him two or three times, but in vain. He was already out of
sight.

The boys looked at each other for a moment with unspeakable amazement.

"It's the queerest thing I ever heard of," exclaimed Clay. "I don't
pretend to understand it. The man was serious in all he said, too."

"There was something familiar about his face," observed Nugget. "At
least I thought so when I first saw him."

"Why, that's just what struck me," replied Clay eagerly. "I never saw
_him_ before, but I have seen some one that looks like him."

"That's about the way of it," assented Nugget. "We'll keep a sharp
lookout for that purple faced man, anyhow."

"We certainly will," replied Clay. "Now then, let's be off. The fellow
won't return again."

They backed out of the inlet and paddled on down the creek. Hardly a
word was spoken. The mysterious stranger's warning had taken a deep hold
upon both lads, and they were so deeply engrossed in puzzling over it
that they failed to see the dam until it was close to them. The falling
water made but little noise since the breastwork was almost submerged.

It was a weird and lonely scene that the boys gazed upon now--the broad
yellow flood under a leaden sky, the gray crumbling mill looming through
a pall of drizzling rain, and beyond, where the mists deepened, the
foaming thread of the creek, visible for a brief stretch before it was
lost among the steep, pine clad hills.

"What a desolate place!" exclaimed Clay. "I don't believe there is a
human being within a mile. The boys must be farther down, and ten to one
they shot the dam in the dark. It doesn't look very dangerous, but I
hardly think we'll risk it, Nugget. That corner by the mill seems a
likely place to carry around."

"So it does," assented Nugget. "Come ahead, we'll try it."

With cautious strokes they paddled on until a sudden glimpse of the
sluiceway leading under the mill caused them to pull up short. They
headed straight for shore, and as they scrambled out at the foot of the
hill, and pu