"This way--there's a ladder here by the hen house!" was what he replied.

Several of the boys seized upon it, and before you could think twice they were rushing the ladder toward the side of the house. Paul climbed up, carrying with him a full bucket of water; and having dashed the contents of this in such a way as to wet a considerable portion of the shingle roof, he threw the bucket down to one of the boys below.

Another was quickly placed in his hands. Everybody was working like a beaver now, even the farmer's wife, carrying water from the creek, and getting it up to the boy on the ladder. It was pretty warm work, for the heat of the burning barn seemed terrific; but then boys can stand a good deal, especially when excited, and bent on accomplishing things; and Paul stuck it out, though he afterwards found several little holes had been burned in his outing shirt by flying sparks.

The barn, of course, was beyond saving, and all their energies must be expended on the house. By slow degrees the fire was burning itself out.

Already Paul felt that the worst was past, and that if they could only keep this up for another ten minutes all would be well.

A couple of neighbors had come along by this time, to help as best they could. When a fire takes place in the country everybody is ready and willing to lend a hand at carrying out things, or fighting the flames in a primitive fashion; for neighbors have to depend more or less upon each other in case of necessity.

"I reckon the house ain't liable to go this time," Andy remarked, when Paul came down the ladder finally, trembling from his continued exertions, which had been considerable of a strain on the lad, wearied as he was with three days' tramping.

"That's a fact," remarked the farmer, who came hustling forward about this time, "and I owe you boys a heap for what you done this night. I guess now, only for you comin' to help, I'd a lost my house as well as my barn. As it is I've got a lot to be thankful for. Just put insurance on the barn, and the new crop of hay last week. I call that being pretty lucky for once."

He shook hands with each of the scouts, and asked after their names.

"I want to let your folks know what you done for us this night, boys,"

he said, "and p'raps you might accept some little present later on, just as a sort of remembrance, you know."

"How did the fire start, sir?" asked Paul.

"That's what bothers me a heap," replied the farmer.

"Then you don't know?" continued the scoutmaster, who felt a reasonable curiosity to learn what he could of the matter while on the spot.

"It's all a blank mystery to me, for a fact," continued the farmer, whose name the boys had learned was Mr. Rollins. "My barn and stable was all one, you see. My man has been away all day, and I had to look after the stock myself, but I finished just as dark set in, before supper, in fact, so there ain't been so much as a lighted lantern around here tonight."

"Perhaps, when you lighted your pipe you may have thrown the match away, and it fell in the hay?" suggested Paul.

"If it had, the fire'd started long ago; fact is, I'd a seen it right away. And to settle that right in the start let me say I don't smoke at all, and didn't have any occasion to strike a single match while out here."

Of course this statement of the farmer seemed to settle all idea of his having been in any way responsible for the burning of the barn.

"It looks like a big black mystery, all right," declared Fritz, who always liked to come upon some knotty problem that needed solving.

"Have you any idea that the fire could have been the work of tramps?"

Paul went on to ask.

"We are never troubled that way up here," replied the farmer. "You see, it's away from the railroad, and hoboes generally follow the ties when they tramp across country."

"That makes it all the more queer how the fire could have started," Paul went on to remark, thoughtfully.

"Couldn't a been one of the cows taken to smoking, I suppose?" ventured Seth, in a humorous vein.

"One thing sure," continued the farmer, a little uneasily, "that fire must have been caused by what they call spontaneous combustion; or else somebody set it on purpose."

"Do you know of anybody who would do such a terrible thing; that is, have you any enemy that you know of, sir?" questioned Paul.

"None that I would ever suspect of such a mean thing as that," was the farmer's ready reply. "We're human around here, you know, and may have our little differences now and then, but they ain't none of 'em serious enough to tempt a man to burn a neighbor's barn. No, that's a dead sure thing."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," the scoutmaster went on. "And I don't suppose now, you've missed any valuables, have you, sir?"

The farmer turned a shade whiter, and Paul could see that a shiver went through his frame.

"Gosh! I hadn't thought about that. Wait here a minute, will you, please?"

With that he dashed into the house, as though a sudden terrible suspicion had a.s.sailed him. The six scouts stood there awaiting his return. Mrs. Rollins was talking with the neighbors, as they watched the last of the barn disappearing in a bed of red cinders.

Hardly had a full minute pa.s.sed before the boys saw the farmer come leaping out of the building again. No need for any one to ask a question, because his whole appearance told the story of new excitement and mystery. If ever a man looked worried and nearly heart broken the farmer did then.

"It's sure enough gone, every cent of it!" he groaned, as he reached the scouts.

"Your money, I suppose you mean?" Paul asked, sympathetically; while Fritz and Seth p.r.i.c.ked up their ears eagerly at the prospect of another chapter being added to the little excitement of the evening.

"Yes, three thousand dollars that was to pay off my mortgage next week.

I had it hid away where I thought no thief could even find it; but the little tin box, and everything has been carried off. And now I know why the barn was fired--so as to keep the missus and me out there, while the rascal made a sneak into the house, and laid hands on my savings. All gone, and the mortgage due next week!"

CHAPTER VI

THE HOME-COMING OF JO DAVIES

"Whew! that's tough!" observed Seth.

One or two of the other scouts whistled, to indicate the strained condition of their nerves; and all of them pressed up a little closer, so as not to lose a single word of what was pa.s.sing.

"But if as you say, sir, that you had this money securely hidden, it doesn't seem possible that an ordinary tramp would know the place where you kept it, so that he could dodge right into the house, and in a minute be off with it; isn't that so?"

Paul was the greatest hand you ever heard of to dip deeply into a thing.

Where most other boys of his age would be satisfied to simply listen, and wonder, he always persisted in asking questions, in order to get at the facts. And he was not born in Missouri either, as Seth often laughingly declared.

The farmer looked at him. There was a frown beginning to gather on his forehead as though sudden and serious doubts had commenced to take a grip on his mind.

"If he took my money I'll have the law on him, as sure as my name is Sile Rollins," Paul heard him mutter, half to himself.

"Then you've thought of some one who might have known that you had three thousand dollars under your roof, is that it, sir?" he asked.

"Y-yes, but it's hard to suspect Jo, when I've done so much for him these years he's been with me," admitted the owner of the farm; though at the same time his face took on a hard expression, and he ground his teeth together furiously, while he went on to say, "but if so be he has robbed me, I ain't called upon to have any mercy on him, just because his old mother once nursed my wife, and I guess saved her life. Jo has got to hand my money back, or take the consequences."

"Is Jo your hired man?" Paul asked.

The farmer nodded his head moodily; he was evidently a prey to mingled feelings, and close upon the border of a dazed condition. These calamities following so swiftly upon each other's heels had taken his breath away. But presently he would recover, and be eager to do something.

"You said just a bit ago that he was away today, and that you had to do the ch.o.r.es this evening, looking after the stock, and such things; wasn't that it, sir?" continued the scoutmaster.

"He asked to have this afternoon off; wouldn't say why he wanted to get away, either. And by ginger! now that I think of it, Jo did look kind of excited when he was asking me for leave. I can see why that should be so. He was figuring on this nasty little game right then and there. He wanted to be able to prove an _alibi_ in case he was ever accused. And this evening he must have put a match to the hay in the barn, and then watched his chance to creep into the house when both of us was busy trying to save the stock. Oh! it makes my blood boil just to think of it. And I never would have believed Jo Davies could have been so cold blooded as to take the chances of burnin' the animals he seemed to be so fond of."