“What explanation did Sam make?” asked Tom.

“All I could hear was that it was a mistake, and that he wandered off the road in the darkness.”

“The same as we did when we got in the corn,” said Tom.  “So that’s all there was to it?”

“Except that Appleby was ripping mad, and threatened to have the next school lad arrested whom he found on his property.  We’ll have to make a new course for cross-country runs after this I guess, for we used to run across his big meadow.”

“Yes,” assented Tom.  “Well, I didn’t think it would amount to anything.  I’m much obliged, though.”

“You wait!” insisted Jack.  “This isn’t the bottom of it yet, not by a long shot.”

“What do you mean?” asked Tom curiously.

“I mean that Sam isn’t such a loon as to get off the road on to Appleby’s land just by mistake, or because it was dark.”

“You mean he went there purposely?”

“I sure do.”

“What for?” and Tom gazed curiously at his chum.

“That’s what I’ve got to find out.  He had some object, and I shouldn’t be surprised but what it was you, Tom.”

“Me?”

“Yes.  He hasn’t succeeded in driving you out of the Hall as he hoped, and now he’s up to some more mean tricks.”

Tom shook his head.  He had a curious disbelief in Sam’s guilt.

“Go ahead on that line if you like, Jack,” he said.  “But I can’t agree with you.  I’m going to follow my bottle clew to-morrow, and nothing the others could say would make Tom admit that Sam had a hand in poisoning the horses, or in setting the hay on fire.

“But look how ready he was to accuse you,” insisted Bert.

“That was only to clear himself,” said Tom.  “The fact of his sweater being like mine was a strange coincidence, and he had to say something.”

“He was ready enough to accuse you,” put in Jack.  “Say, Tom, old man, why don’t you come out and tell us where you went that night—­and why?  Tell us what you did—­how your sweater got away from you, and was found on the farm.  Go ahead!”

“Do!” urged Bert.

But Tom shook his head.

“I can’t--not yet,” he said.   “I promised Ray------”

He stopped suddenly.  His chums leaned forward eagerly.

“Well, I can’t say any more,” he finished.  “Now let’s forget all this, and have a game of chess, somebody.  It will make me sleep good.”

“I’m going to cut,” said George.  “You fellows can play.”

Tom and Jack sat down to the royal game, while Bert got out a book, and for a time silence reigned in the apartment.

Tom made an early trip to town the next day.  He went directly to the drugstore, the torn label of which was on the bottle he had found to contain a trace of poison.

Without going into details, but announcing who he was, he asked if the druggist could give him any information as to who had bought the cyanide.