I know why you went after your gun, Frank!" he remarked. "Not
that I blame you a particle, remember. Don't I remember the dark face
of that Jules, and how he stared at me, and ground his white teeth,
when they took him away. All this time I've allowed myself to sleep
sweetly, under the belief that, since he was bound to stay behind stone
walls at least eight years, I needn't be afraid. But sometimes even
walls can be scaled. Is it loaded, Frank--your gun, I mean?"

To oblige him Frank laughingly opened the breech, and inserted a couple
of shells.

"Shucks! only Number Tens?" ejaculated Andy. "If it had been me now,
I'd have brought a handful of buckshot ones. Much good these would do
now if Jules was running away, and had covered a hundred yards."

"Then I'd be willing to let him run," said Frank. "What I want them
for most of all is to meet Jules, if he persists in advancing too
close."

They were still discussing the matter an hour later; or at least some
of them kept it up, while Larry started the fire inside the shop, and
began the necessary operation looking to a dinner to which the old
Colonel had been invited on condition that he relate a few more of his
strange experiences in China, Thibet and Northern India.

"Look who's coming!" called out Elephant and of course this made them
all turn their heads; even Larry running to the door, gun in hand, as
though he had heard the remark, and thought it might refer to the
dreaded Jules himself.

A car was coming from the direction of the town, and in a cloud of
dust. Naturally the first thought that came to Frank was that it might
be Mr. Marsh and his companion, Longley. But as the breeze lifted the
curtain of dust, he immediately discovered that this was not so.

Half a dozen men were crowded in the car and one of these half arose in
passing, to wave a hand vigorously toward the group of boys in the
field.

"That's Chief Waller!" remarked Andy, with more or less eagerness in
his voice.

"And those others are some of his men," Frank went on. "They don't
mean to lose any time about looking Jules up, do they?"

"Hey! are you sure about that?" asked Elephant; "because none of 'em
had a uniform on; and what good are the police in plain clothes?"

"Oh! there are times when they can do more without their uniforms than
in them," Frank remarked. "And this ought to be one of them. Suppose
now that keen-eyed Jules happened to be on the lookout, and saw a