"Stocks? Mercy, no! I leave all that to your uncle. I have trouble enough--"

The door bell rang and Mrs. Kenfield opened it. A boy handed her a telegram. Her hands shook as she opened it.

"Jane is worse," she said as she read the second brief dispatch. "I must hurry off soon. Now Ned, I can't tell you how sorry I am, but you had better arrange to go home at once. I will take the noon train for Chicago. What time can you get one back to Darewell?"

"At four this afternoon."

"Then you had better take it. Mary, hurry packing those trunks. Then get your own things ready."

"Mine are all packed, Mrs. Kenfield," the girl replied.

"All right then. See that the house is well locked up. Don't leave any victuals around where they will spoil. Shut all the blinds and fasten the windows well. You can go any time you are ready, Mary."

"I was going to the station with you and help you carry your valise."

"Ned can do that. His train doesn't go until four o'clock; can't you, Ned?"

"Certainly, aunt."

Ned's chance to ask advice was gone for, following the receipt of the second telegram, his aunt was so excited about getting ready that he had no heart to bother her with his affair. He started every time the door bell rang, fearing the police might have traced him to his aunt's house and would arrest him at any moment.

An expressman, who had been telephoned for, took two trunks belonging to Mrs. Kenfield. They were to go to Chicago. Mary's was also shipped to her friends in Long Island. Ned was glad he had left his at the depot, as it could be checked back to his home from there.

Mary departed about ten o'clock. The house had been darkened by the closing of the shutters so that it was necessary to light the gas. Mrs.

Kenfield went about making sure that all the doors were fastened.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am," she said to Ned. "To think of your holiday being spoiled!"

"Don't worry about that, aunt," said the boy. "It couldn't be helped."

In fact he was thinking less about his broken holiday than he was about his own plight in the stock transaction. He felt the certificate rustle in his pocket when he moved, and he had half a mind to throw it away.

But he feared lest doing that, even with the tearing of it into small bits, might lead to his discovery. He was too worried and excited to be able to think clearly.

"I guess we are all ready," his aunt remarked as she stood in the hall.

She had a small valise to carry, and Ned had the one he had brought from home.

"Be sure and explain to your father how it happened," Mrs. Kenfield said. "Tell him about your uncle's unexpected trip to Europe and about Jane Alden. He knew her quite well when he was a young man. Now I guess we will start. I like to be in plenty of time for my train. I hate to hurry at the last minute."

Together they left the house, Ned carrying both valises. They boarded the elevated which ran near Mrs. Kenfield's house and were soon on their way to the station where Ned's aunt was to take her train.

The boy saw her safely aboard and bade her good-bye. She told him to write to her, and gave him her Chicago address.

"Tell your chums how sorry I was to disappoint them," she called to Ned as her train rolled out of the depot.

"I will," replied Ned.

Then, left alone as he was in the big city, he felt a sense of fear, and hardly knew what to do.

"Guess I'd better go straight back to Darewell and tell dad all about it," he said to himself.

He was soon in the station at which he had arrived the day previous, and where he had left his trunk. As he was going to the baggage room, to have it rechecked to Darewell, he caught sight of a man who seemed strangely familiar to him. The man had his back toward Ned, but when he turned the boy saw it was the postal inspector who had been at the offices of Skem & Skim.

"He's after me!" thought Ned. "He's on my track! I must not let him see me."

He turned suddenly away so the man could not observe his face. The inspector was talking to a policeman, and Ned overheard the bluecoat ask:

"Have you sent the telegram?"

"Yes, they'll be on the watch for him if he goes back home," was the reply. "They'll nab him as soon as he gets off the train. If he calls for his baggage the agent here will hold him and notify me."

Ned hurried from the depot and ran up the street as if the officer was after him. The last way of escape seemed closed.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CHUMS ARRIVE

Darewell never had known such excitement as followed the destruction of the school tower.

Of course all the doings in Mr. Williamson's store leaked out, and, though there were not lacking those who accused the four chums of, at least, knowing something about the matter, there were others who felt sure they had had nothing to do with it.

"I just wish I had a chance to nurse that mean Mr. Williamson!"

exclaimed Alice, when her brother had told her of the hearing. "I'd fix him."

"What would you do?"

"I'd cover him with the hottest mustard plasters I could make, and I've got a good formulae for some powerful ones. Then I'd fasten 'em on with bandages so they couldn't come off. The idea of accusing you boys!"

"He didn't exactly accuse us," said Bart. "That's the trouble. If he did we could demand a legal trial and be found not guilty in short order.

As it is we're suspected and can't prove our innocence."

"What are they going to do about it?"

"Why nothing at present, and I'm glad of it. Frank, Fenn, and I are going to New York Wednesday and we don't care what they do until we come back."

"But, Bart, doesn't that look like running away?"

"I don't care what it looks like. It's the first chance we have ever had of going to a big city like that and we may never have another, so we're going. They can talk all they want to, and fix the tower up to suit themselves."

From the preparations Bart and his two chums made for their journey to New York, one would have thought they were going to Europe. They were at the station about an hour ahead of train time Wednesday morning, and a number of their boy friends were present to see them off. Going to New York was somewhat of a novelty in Darewell, especially when three boys went at once to visit the rich aunt of another local lad.

Amid a chorus of good-byes the boys got aboard and soon they were speeding toward the big city. They arrived at the same depot where Ned had left the train two days before, and looked around for a possible sight of their chum.

"Was he going to meet us here?" asked Frank.

"No, he said we were to go right to his aunt's house," replied Fenn.