ped up their
horse and started down the road in a cloud of dust."

"You ought to have stopped them," said Jack.

"How could I do that? I wasn't close enough to catch hold of the
horse. And besides that, what chance would an old feller like me have
against two husky men? More than likely, too, they was armed, while I
didn't have anything--not even a cane."

"But you should have notified the authorities," said Fred.

"Oh, I did that, knowing that they was on the lookout for those
fellers. I hurried to Rackville just as fast as I could, and called on
the justice of the peace and the town constable. Then they got busy
and telephoned to the next town and notified the police. They got a
gang of six or eight men lookin' for the men and the wagon, but up to
this afternoon they hadn't got any trace of 'em."

"Well, that certainly is interesting," remarked Jack. "You say you are
pretty sure they are the same fellows who were around the plant just
previous to the explosion?"

"Well, as I said before, I wouldn't like to swear to it until I got a
better look at 'em. But those two fellers on the wagon had the same
bushy black hair and whiskers and the same round faces. More than
that, they wore the same slouch hats that the other fellers had."

"Have you any idea what was in the packages in the wagon?" questioned
the young captain.

"Sounded to me as if it might be iron, or something like that. It
jangled just like hardware."

"It's queer they would be on that back road with such stuff," said
Jack slowly. "Did the folks at Rackville think they might live down
near the bay?"

"They said there wasn't any folks around there so far as they knew
that wore bushy black hair and black beards. They knew about everybody
who lives within several miles of here," answered Jed Kessler.

The two Rovers talked the matter over with the old man for a few
minutes longer, the foreman of the dairy also having his say. Then the
boys had to hurry back to the camp, to fulfill their duties as captain
and lieutenant.

As was to be expected, there was a certain amount of horseplay in camp
that evening to which those in charge turned something of a blind eye.

"We'll have to leave the boys let off steam a little," said Captain
Dale to the professors who had come with him. "I think they'll soon
settle down to regular routine."

But the excitement of getting ready for the encampment, and the long
tramp over the dusty roads, had tired all of the