Of course all of them were in their running outfits, which consisted of trunks, sleeveless jerseys, shoes with spikes in the soles, and an excuse of a hat, though Bristles declined to wear anything on his mop of hair.

"All here but Sid, now, Fred," announced Colon, as the other joined them.

"We're a little ahead of the time that was set," remarked Fred, who seemed to be unusually sober it appeared to the sharp-eyed Colon, "and Sid will be along soon. I saw him heading for town, and he called across lots that he had a little errand, but would join us as soon as he could get back home, and pile into his running togs. Let's sit down somewhere, and take it easy, boys."

"A good idea, too," commented Bristles, "because, with a twenty-five mile run before us, we'll have all the standing on our feet we want. Chances are it'll be a pretty tired bunch of boys that'll turn up here some hours from now."

They found a place to settle down, and after a little talk about the weather, during which Colon was called upon to once more prophesy as to the chances for rain, he suddenly turned to Fred, to say:

"What's bothering you this morning, Fred?"

"Why do you ask me that?" returned the other, with a little smile.

"Well," Colon continued, "I'm used to watching faces, and it struck me when you came up, there was a worried look on your face. Hope you're not feeling anyway off?"

"Never felt in better condition in my life," Fred a.s.sured him. "One or two little bruises from that business of last night, but nothing to mention, and I don't expect to even think of them again."

"What happened, then?" asked Bristles.

"Only that our house was entered last night!" Fred observed, calmly.

The other boys gave expression to their astonishment in various exclamations.

"Burglarized, you mean, Fred?" cried Colon.

"Well, yes, I guess you might call it that, though it seems only one particular thing was carried off," Fred replied.

"You've got us guessing good and hard," said Bristles. "Was that your dad's pocketbook, his watch, the piano, or what could it be?"

"A hat," explained Fred.

Bristles and Colon fairly gasped upon hearing this.

"D'ye mean to tell us, Fred, that a desperate burglar would take all the chances of breaking into a house where he might get shot, just to steal a hat!" Colon demanded, as though suspecting they were being made the victims of a joke, although as a rule Fred seldom allowed himself to attempt anything of the kind.

"Sometimes even a hat may be a mighty important thing, if you stop to think of it, fellows," he informed them.

"Great smoke! Fred, do you mean that hat?" exclaimed Bristles, suddenly remembering something.

"The one we picked up on the battlefield!" added Colon, helplessly.

"That's the one I mean," they were told by the other, with a positive tone that could not be mistaken. "When I got home I tossed it onto the hall table. It wasn't there this morning, and I asked the girl, and everyone about the house if they'd seen it, but n.o.body had. And what was plain evidence of a robbery was the fact that a window was found open in the sitting-room, which my dad says he is sure he shut and locked before he went to bed."

"It was c.o.o.ney Jimmerson, of course?" suggested Colon.

"He's always been too clever with his fingers," Bristles gave as his opinion. "Maybe you remember, Colon, because it was before Fred's time here, how c.o.o.ney used to sneak into the coat-rooms at school, and go through the pockets of our reefers looking for pennies or tops or any old thing. He got in a peck of trouble on account of his sly tricks. If anybody could turn the catch of a window, and crawl in, I'd put it up to him."

"But Fred, how would he know you'd found his old hat?" asked Colon.

"We'll have to guess at that," he was told. "Look back, Colon, and you'll be likely to remember that several times we heard a rustling sound in that clump of bushes, while we were standing there talking, after finding the hat."

"Yes, and you thought it might be only a rabbit, or a chipmunk, or something like that," a.s.sented Colon, promptly.

"Now that the hat we were keeping as evidence has been stolen from my house," Fred continued, "I'm more than sure that must have been c.o.o.ney himself. He'd missed his hat, and afraid that we might find it, he came creeping back to get into that bunch of brush, where he could hear every word we spoke. So he knew I was keeping his hat to prove who was in the crowd that tackled us unawares."

"He just knew that if his hat were ever shown, he'd be in the soup,"

observed Colon, "so he thought it worth while to take all kinds of chances in the hope of copping it again. But let me tell you, the boy who'd open a window, and creep into a neighbor's house night times, is pretty close to the line. He's on the road to being a regular professional thief when he grows up, because it shows he likes that sort of thing."

"You know they say, 'as the twig's inclined, the tree is bent,'" Bristles told them, ponderously, "and we all can guess what'll become of Buck Lemington some day. He'll either make a striking figure in finance, or else head some big swindle that'll send him up for twenty years."

"But with the evidence gone," Colon remarked, "of course that ends the plan to show c.o.o.ney up at school?"

"Yes, and that was what he took such big chances for," Fred admitted.

"We might tell the whole story, but without any positive evidence there would always seem to be a weak link in it. Some folks might even say we were prejudiced. They'd rather believe the attack came from one of the other towns. People always like to believe bad things about rival places rather than the home town. So we'd better shut down on that hat part of the story, and keep it quiet."

"Course it doesn't matter if we let it be known we were set upon, only we mustn't say we suspect any particular boys," Colon went on to remark, with a little confusion that told Fred he must have already been telling something about the encounter, though not mentioning names.

"Call that settled, then," Bristles added, "but it's too bad, when you had the case framed up against c.o.o.ney for fair and keeps. He'd have found himself the most unpopular fellow in Riverport, that's, right."

"The main thing with me," Fred explained, "was the hope that when everybody got to pointing the finger of scorn at c.o.o.ney, he'd feel so mean and small that, not wanting to stand for all the abuse alone, he'd up and confess that it was Buck who had started the racket. But as our plans have missed fire, we'll have to forget all about it. We've got our hands full as it is with this race, and getting ready to do our level best to win."

"I think I see Sid coming," Colon told them just then, and as he had an advantage over the rest by reason of his long neck, n.o.body disputed his word.

"We haven't forgotten anything, I hope?" Bristles observed, as they arose to their feet, and began to stretch themselves, boy fashion.

Fred carried a little pouch at his side that he did not believe would interfere at all with his running, though of course even this would be discarded when the great Marathon test was on. In this he carried matches, a small but reliable compa.s.s, and a few simple remedies that might come in handy in case any of them happened to be seized with colic or cramps from drinking water when overheated.

"Nothing that I know of, Bristles," Fred announced, as he touched this small pouch which, in the woods among old hunters would probably be called a "ditty-bag," and contain all manner of little odds and ends likely to be needed from time to time.

Sid was now running. The mere fact that he might be a little behind time would hardly seem to be sufficient excuse for his starting off in this way. Fred eyed the newcomer as he approached them. He fancied that Sid was bringing news of some kind.

Sid was breathing a little fast. That was to be expected in the start, though when he got his "second wind" he would very likely be good for a long, hard run.

"Give me five minutes, fellows, to rest up in, so we can all start even,"

Sid went on to say, "and besides, I've got something to tell you."

All of them dropped down again on the fresh green gra.s.s that the recent warm weather had caused to sprout forth luxuriantly in places.

"We're listening," Bristles told him, placing the cup of a hand back of his ear, as though he wanted to make sure of not losing a single word, while Colon a.s.sumed an eager att.i.tude, with his eyes glued on Sid's flushed face.

"None of you happened to go down-town this morning, I reckon?" was the first thing Sid said, and as three heads were vehemently shaken in the negative, he continued, "Well, then it'll give you something of a surprise to know that it's happened again."

"Not a fire in the high school?" exclaimed Colon, for a serious event of this kind had taken place in the near past, that had created something of a panic in Riverport.

Sid shook his head in the negative.

"This was a robbery," he went on to say, in a way that gave the other three a severe shock; "just as when old Periwinkle was robbed. This time it was Mrs. Merriweather, the rich widow, who owns so many houses, and gets her rents in on the first. Somebody broke in there, and she never knew till this morning that her desk had been pried open, and three hundred dollars taken!"