glowing with wrath. "I'm going to have this mystery explained, or know
the reason why."

He left Mr. Camp to watch the burning fodder, to see that sparks from
the stack did no harm, and lighting his lantern he went along the line
fence again.

Yes! there were the footprints that he had expected to find. But the
burning stack was even farther from the fence than the first one
had been--and there were no marks of feet in the soft earth on Mrs.
Atterson's side of the boundary.

CHAPTER XXXIV. CLEANING UP A PROFIT

Hiram crawled through the wires, and followed the plain foot-marks back
to the Dickerson sheds. He lost them there, of course, but he knew by
the size of the footprints that either Sam Dickerson or his oldest son
had been over to the line fence.

"And that shooting-star!" considered Hiram. "There was something peculiar
about that. I wonder if there wasn't a shooting star, also, away back
there at New Year's when our other stack of fodder was burned?"

He loitered about the sheds for a few moments. It appeared as though all
the Dickersons were indoors. Nobody interfered with him.

Of a sudden Hiram began to sniff an odor that seemed strange about a
cart-shed. At least, no wise farmer would have naphtha, or gasoline, in
his outbuildings, for it would make his insurance invalid.

But that was the smell Hiram discovered. And he was not long in finding
the cause of it.

Back in a dark corner, upon a beam, lay a big sling-shot--one of those
that boys swing around their heads with a stone in the heel of it, and
then let go one end to shoot the missile to a distance.

The leather loop was saturated with the gasoline, and it had been
scorched, too. The smell of burning, as well as the smell of gasoline,
was very distinct.

Hiram took the sling-shot with him, and went up to the Dickerson house.

He had got along so well with the Dickersons for these past months
that he honestly shrank from "starting anything" now. Yet he could not
overlook this flagrant piece of malicious mischief. Indeed, it was more
than that. Two stacks had already been burned, and it might be some of
the outbuildings--or even Mrs. Atterson's house--next time!

Besides, Hiram felt himself responsible for his employer's property. The
old lady could not afford to lose the fodder, and Hiram was determined
that both of the burned stacks should be paid for in full.

He looked through the window of the Dickerson kitchen. The family was
a