was set."

"Dave, do you think Merwell and Haskers would do it?" questioned Roger.

"Yes, if they were in this neighborhood. But have they been here?"

The boys looked at each other. Nobody had seen Merwell or the former
teacher of Oak Hall in that vicinity.

"Let us make some inquiries down at the railroad station in the
morning," suggested Dave. "If those two stopped off here somebody must
have seen them."

"Phew! what a noise that cannon cracker did make!" murmured Phil. "If we
had set that off in the morning--as we intended--I reckon it would have
woke up the neighborhood pretty well."

"It did wake some folks up," answered Roger, for quite a few boys and
men had come up to find out what the flames and noise meant.

"It was certainly some firecracker," was Luke's comment.

"Say, speaking of firecrackers puts me in mind of a story!" burst out
Shadow.

"Wow! A story this time of night!" murmured Buster. "I'm going to bed."

"This is a short one," pleaded the would-be story-teller. "A man was
giving a celebration one Fourth of July to a lot of children. He had
ordered a lot of firecrackers, but they didn't come. So he sent a
telegram to the wholesale house in the city. 'Send big and little
crackers as ordered at once.' About an hour afterwards he got a return
telegram which said, 'Our grocery department is closed to-day. Your
order for crackers will be filled to-morrow.'"

"Call that a crackerjack joke?" asked Roger, with a grin.

"Don't crack any more like that, Shadow," added Dave.

"You might get fired if you do," contributed Phil; and then a general
laugh went up, after which all of the boys again retired.

In the morning the lads inspected the vicinity of the fire once more,
and spent some time in shooting off a pistol and a shotgun which Roger
possessed. Then, acting on a suggestion from Dave, they took a walk to
the railroad station.

Here an interesting bit of news awaited them, which was to the effect
that, owing to some trouble with a bridge about a mile outside of
Hemson, two passenger trains and a freight had been held up at the
station for several hours.

"Most of the passengers remained in the trains," said the station agent.
"But some of 'em got restless and they went over to the hotel, and some
walked down to where the bridge was being repaired."

"Did you notice two people in particular?" asked Roger, and described
Merwell and Job Haskers as well as he could.

"No, I don't remembe