No doubt there would be a hot time among their followers, when the leaders endeavored to drive them to beat the record Wallace Carberry had set in his fire starting, and water-boiling test.

“Suppose you come to supper with me, Paul,” suggested Jack, when they were more than half way back to town, with the double column moving along like clockwork, every right leg thrust out in unison, as though forming a part of a well-regulated machine.

Paul looked quickly at him when Jack said this.

“Oh!  I can see through a millstone, when it has a hole in it,” he remarked.

“Which is one way of saying that you can guess I have a motive in asking you?” returned the other, smiling queerly; “well, I have, in fact, several.  In the first place my mother told me to ask you.  I rather think she wants to pump you about that affair last night.  Father wouldn’t tell her all she wished to know.  Then again I’m still all broken up about those lost coins; and I thought perhaps you might have guessed the answer to the riddle.”

“What’s that?  More of them gone, Jack?” asked Paul, lowering his voice, so that the two scouts at the tail end of the line might not hear.

“Don’t know yet.  Didn’t have the nerve to go up into my den since this morning.  To tell the truth that place has lost all charm for me.  Whenever I find myself there I get to shivering, and looking around, just like I half expected to see a ghost step out, and pick up one of those miserable coins right before my very eyes—­ugh! it’s horrible to feel that way, and I used to be so fond of my den, too.”

“Oh!  I hope and expect you will be again, Jack, when we’ve settled this little thing.  You say none of them were ever taken in the night?” said Paul, earnestly; while his knitted brows told how much he felt concerned over the mystery.

“Certainly not.  Always in broad daylight.  That’s the queer part of it,” returned the other, promptly.

“Sure, seeing that they always go in the daytime, and when you’re away from home, too.  Anybody else going to be there to-night?”

“To supper—­oh! no.  Karl went off after breakfast, to visit our uncle for a few days before school commences.  I took him to the train myself, and then mustered up enough courage to climb up there, and once more count the coins,” went on Jack.

“Six there then, eh?” asked Paul.

“Just as last night.  And I purposely left the door unlocked.”

“Both door and window open in the bargain?” asked the other; at which Jack looked puzzled.

“Of course; though that wouldn’t matter at all; for any fellow could turn the knob, and walk in,” he replied.

“But the door was open, just like a plain invitation to enter, should anybody think of going up to see—­say that again, please,” continued Paul.

“Well, I do say it again, though I can’t understand why you should make that a point worth mentioning.  Still, I have confidence in you, Paul.  If anybody can get at the root of my trouble it’s going to be you, old fellow.”