e angry man roared.

"Stop that, Sam Dickerson!" cried his wife. She suddenly gained courage
and ran to the struggling pair, and tried to haul Sam away from Hiram.

"The boy's right," she gasped. "I heard Pete tellin' little Sam last
night what he'd done. It's come to a pretty pass, so it has, if you are
goin' to uphold that bad boy in thieving----"

"Hush up, Maw!" cried Pete's voice from the house.

"Come out here, you scalawag!" ordered his father, relaxing his hold on
Hiram.

Pete slouched out on the porch, wearing a grin that was half sheepish,
half worried.

"What's this Strong says about turkeys?" demanded Sam Dickerson,
sternly.

"'Tain't so!" declared Pete. "I ain't seen no turkeys."

"I have found them," said Hiram, quietly. "And the coopful is down
yonder in your lot. You thought to fool me by turning into our farm from
the direction of Scoville, and driving back that way; but you turned
around in the road under that overhanging oak, where I picked Lettie
Bronson off the back of the runaway horse last Spring.

"Now, those ten turkeys belong to Sister. She'll be heart-broken if
anything happens to them. You have played me several mean tricks since I
have been here, Pete Dickerson----"

"No, I ain't!" interrupted the boy.

"Who took the burr off the end of my axle and let me down in the road
that night?" demanded Hiram, his rage rising.

Pete could not forbear a grin at this remembrance.

"And who tampered with our pump the next morning? And who watched and
waited till we left the lower meadow that night we burned the rubbish,
and then set fire to our woods----"

Mrs. Dickerson screamed again. "I knew that fire never come by
accident," she moaned.

"You shut up, Maw!" admonished her hopeful son again.

"And now, I've got you," declared Hiram, with confidence. "I can tell
those ten poults. I marked them for Sister long ago so that, if they
went to the neighbors, they could be easily identified.

"They're in that shut-up coop down yonder," continued Hiram, "and unless
you agree to bring them back at once, and put them in our coop, I shall
hitch up and go to town, first thing, and get out a warrant for your
arrest."

Sam had remained silent for a minute, or two. Now he said, decidedly:

"You needn't threaten no more, young feller. I can see plain enough that
Pete's been carrying his fun too far----"

"Fun!" ejaculated Hiram.

"That's what I said," growled Sam. "He'll bring the turkeys ba