“Now good-bye to Oak Run,” he muttered to himself.  “I was a fool to come here in the first place, even to meet that Dan Baxter!”

In a moment more he was out of the vault and running to the rear of the cemetery as fast as his legs would carry him.

In the meantime Sam made his way as quickly as possible to a house situated at the front corner of the cemetery, where the keeper of the place resided.

A knock on the door brought the keeper’s daughter.  She knew Sam and smiled.

“What can I do for you, Sam?” she asked.

“Where is your father, Jennie?”

“He just went down to the village to buy a new spade.”

“Oh, pshaw! that’s too bad.”

“What is the matter?  I hope you’re not going to have a funeral in your family.”

“No funeral in this, Jennie.  I met a thief in Oak Run and tried to have him arrested.  He ran into the cemetery and hid in the new vault and I locked the door on him.  Now I want your father or somebody else to help me take him to the lock-up.”

“A thief!  What did he steal?”

“Some jewelry.  It’s a long story.  Do you know where I can find somebody else?”

“Jack Sooker is working over to the other end of the cemetery—­cutting down an old tree.  You might get him.”

“Where?”

“I’ll show you.”

Jennie ran to get her hat.  She was just putting it on when a bell began to ring in the hall of the cottage.

“Gracious me!” gasped the girl.

“What’s the matter now?”

“That’s the bell to the new vault.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There is an electric button in the vault.  When you push it, it unlocks the door and rings this bell.  It was put there in case somebody was in the vault in a trance and came to life again.”

“What!” ejaculated Sam.  “Then that rascal must have pushed the button and opened the door from the inside.”

“Yes.”

“I’m off.  He is not going to escape if I can help it.”  And so speaking, the youngest Rover dashed off the porch of the cottage and in the direction from whence he had come.

It did not take him long to reach the new vault and a glance through the open doorway showed him that his bird had flown.

“What a dunce I was not to think of that electric button!” he mused.  “I knew Mrs. Singleton had stipulated it should be put in.  She has a perfect horror of being buried alive.”

Sam looked around in all directions, but could see nothing of Lew Flapp.

But not far away was a pile of loose dirt and in this he saw some fresh tracks, pointing to the rear of the cemetery.

“That’s his course,” he thought, and set off in that direction.  He still carried the stick he had picked up and vowed that Lew Flapp should not get away so easily again.

The end of the cemetery bordered on the Swift River, a stream which has already figured in these stories of the Rover boys.  It was a rocky, swift-flowing watercourse, and the bank at the end of the burying ground was fully ten feet high.