“I say!” shouted Mr. Stebbins, in a stentorian voice. “Be you gone clean deaf—you two? Come down from there, I tell you, or I’ll send you to kingdom come afore you can bat your eyes.”

The astonished boys lost no time in waking up. The sight of the cocked gun and the angry man’s face was enough to banish sleep most effectually.

“I knowed you was here for no good the first time I seen you,” continued Mr. Stebbins. “Your gun and your poles is only a blind to make folks b’lieve that you come up here to hunt and fish; but I know you. I seen you run in here after shootin’ off your guns to skeer me; but I’ve got a gun, too, an’ I know how to use it. Come down from there, I say! Come down, an’ clear out!”

The boys began to understand the matter now, and Dick saw at once that it was necessary to take some precautions for the safety of himself and his friend.

The old man was so highly excited that he hardly knew what he was doing. His finger was resting on the trigger of his ancient flint-lock, and, if the weapon should be discharged by any accident, Bob Howard would never know what hurt him.

In order to avoid this danger, Dick thought it best to compel Mr. Stebbins to lower his gun, which he did by picking up his double-barrel and resting it across his knees in such a way that its muzzle was directed toward the old man’s head.

“What are you about there?” yelled the latter.

He took the flint-lock down from his shoulder, sprang through the door with surprising agility, and then turned around and looked back, keeping his body concealed, and showing nothing but his eyes and two little tufts of stiff gray hair.

“Turn that we’pon t’other way,” said he, his rage giving way to alarm. “I don’t like it.”

“Do you suppose that we like to look into the muzzle of a cocked gun any better than you do?” demanded Dick. “Come on, Bob; let’s go down there.”

The boys slung their baskets on their backs, picked up their fishing-rods, and descended to the barn floor.

As they passed out into the open air, they took note of the fact that the door was riddled with buckshot. If they had stood there instead of going toward the house, to close the shutter which the robbers had left open in their hurried flight, one or the other of them would have received some of those shot in his body.

When they got out of the barn, they were surprised to find that Mr. Stebbins had beat a hasty retreat. He had taken refuge in the wood-shed, and all they could see of him was the top of his head above the window-sill.

He held his gun so that he could bring it to his shoulder very quickly if circumstances should seem to require it. Believing his position to be impregnable, he had grown savage again.

“Now, then, clear out!” he shouted, as soon as the boys came into view. “But mind what I say—this thing ain’t a-goin’ to be dropped here.”

“We’d rather it wouldn’t be dropped here,” replied Dick. “If you will put down your gun, and come out here so that we can talk to you, we shall be glad to explain matters.”

“They don’t need any explainin’!” snarled Mr. Stebbins. “I understand ’em already. I can see as fur into a grindstone as the next man, old as I be. Clear yourselves.”

“Don’t waste any more time with him,” said Bob, who was utterly disgusted at the old man’s obstinacy. “You might as well argue with a pig.”

“But he thinks we are the ones who tried to rob him,” replied Dick.

“I know it; and he will continue to think so, no matter what you say to him.”

“Be you goin’ to clear out, you two?” shouted the old man, in impatient tones. “I’m a’most tired of waitin’ to see the last of you; but I’ll tell you ag’in that this thing ain’t a-goin’ to be dropped here. I won’t have you prowlin’ around my house no more.”

“You need not worry about that,” yelled Bob in reply. “You may be sure that we shall take particular pains to steer clear of you in future.”

“I bet you will! I’ll have you locked up so tight that you won’t never try to break into any other house. Mind that!”

Having no desire to prolong an interview that could bring forth no good result, Dick and Bob made no further effort to induce the angry old man to listen to the explanation they had to offer. They turned about and walked away.

As Mr. Stebbins saw the distance between them and the house increasing, his courage all came back to him, and he began to show more of his precious anatomy above the window-sill, and to shout after them the most abusive words.

Twice he made a movement indicative of a desire to bring his flint-lock to bear on the boys; but, as often as he did so, Dick and Bob dropped their double-barrels into the hollow of their arms, so that the muzzles covered the window, and then the old man would draw himself down out of sight.

In a few minutes the bushes that lined the shore of the lake shut the house out from their view; but it was not until a long time afterward that the yells and maledictions of the half-crazed occupant of the wood-shed ceased to ring in their ears.

This, we repeat, was the substance of the story that Bob Howard told George, while they were sitting on the bench in the cabin. The only portions of it that he left out were those relating to the supposed identity of Mr. Stebbins’ nocturnal visitors.

He did not mention the name by which one of the robbers had been addressed by the one who seemed to be the leader of the trio, nor did he refer to the fact that the voices of all three of them had sounded familiar to him.

He and Dick had talked these matters over during their walk down the shore, and decided that they would say nothing about them. They were merely coincidences, and, if they so much as hinted at them, they might be the means of placing three of their schoolmates in a most unpleasant situation.

George paid the closest attention to the story, and Dick Langdon noted, with no little astonishment, that at times an expression of intelligence would light up his countenance, and a meaning smile linger about his lips.

When Bob ceased speaking, George asked abruptly:

“You say those robbers engaged in a long conversation in your hearing. Did you recognize their voices?”

This question took Dick and Bob so completely by surprise that they could not speak; but the blank look in their faces told George all he wished to know.

“You needn’t answer me if you don’t want to; but I’ll just tell you what’s a fact,” said he, striking his open palm with his clenched hand. “I’ll bet a million dollars, or half I am worth, that if I felt at all revengeful—if I had any desire to punish three boys who have repeatedly gone out of their way to insult me—I could put my hands on those robbers before sundown, unless they have skipped the country. What do you say to that?”

“I say if you know who they are, you ought to point them out to the officers of the law,” answered Dick Langdon, with the utmost promptness. “Who do you think they are?”

“I don’t think anything about it, Dick; I know. Now, let me tell you a story—a very short one.”

So saying, George, in a few words, told of his accidental meeting with Wallace, Benson and Forbes at the rock beside the spring, and repeated the conversation he had overheard.

While he was speaking, he kept a close watch of his guests’ faces, and he would have been blind, indeed, if he had not been able to see that they knew more about the robbers than they cared to tell.

When he had finished his story, he leaned back against the cabin and waited for one of them to say something; but Bob kept his eyes fastened on the ground, while Dick Langdon stood with his back toward the bench, and appeared to be deeply interested in watching the motions of a fish-hawk that was slowly winging its way across the lake.

Beyond a doubt, these three boys were the possessors of a secret that was destined, at no distant day, to make a commotion in the village.

“Put your story and mine together, and what do you make of them?” continued George, who was anxious that his companions should express an opinion, in order that he might know how nearly it agreed with his own.

“I make just this of them,” answered Bob. “Mr. Stebbins believes that Dick and I tried to rob him last night, and he told us more than once that he didn’t intend to let the matter drop. That means that he is going to have us arrested. If he does that, it may be necessary for Dick and me, in order to protect ourselves, to make three fellows, who shall be nameless, show where they passed the hours between sunset yesterday and sunrise this morning. If he lets us alone—”

“Don’t build any hopes on that,” interrupted George; “for if you do you are bound to be disappointed. He is one of the most vindictive old misers that ever lived.”

“Well, as to that,” said Bob, slowly, “I don’t call a man vindictive because he asks the help of the law when he has been wronged.”

“Neither do I; but he might have listened to your explanation.”

“Well, fellows, what did we come out here for?” said Dick. “It is a most unfortunate piece of business altogether, and I wish to goodness that we were well out of it; but seeing that we are not, and that we can’t settle it among ourselves, I say let’s drop it and go fishing.”

The others said so, too; but the first thing in order was breakfast, and that was very soon made ready.

The water in the kettle, which George had placed over the fire before he opened the door, had had plenty of time to come to the boiling point while they were sitting there on the bench, and it was but a few minutes’ work to make the coffee, lay the table and place upon it some of the delicacies that were brought up from the capacious depths of the camp-baskets.

“Now, if we only had some squirrels for George to broil over the coals, what a breakfast we would have!” exclaimed Dick.

“Don’t grumble with what is set before you, young man,” said Bob, sternly. “It’s not polite. You can’t have any broiled squirrels this morning. The time consumed in shooting and cooking them would be just so much time taken away from our fishing, and we ought to have been anchored over that bass-hole when the sun first touched the water this morning; then we would have caught some fish.”

That was quite true; but still the best part of the morning had not all been lost. Hungry as they were, there were but a very few minutes devoted to breakfast.

There was no time spent in catching minnows for bait, George having been thoughtful enough to procure an ample supply the day before, and neither did it take him long to row the scow out to the bass-hole and bring it to an anchor in the proper place.

The fish were evidently as hungry as the boys had been a short half hour before, and the struggles that ensued between them and their captors were numerous and exciting. They took the bait almost as quickly as it was offered to them, and, although some succeeded in effecting their escape, the most of those that were struck were safely landed, by the aid of the folding dip-net that had found a place in Bob’s basket; and by the time ten o’clock came, George’s guests had caught a larger string than the one they had carried to the village with them the Saturday before.

George himself did not do much fishing. He did not believe in wasting such good things as black bass, so he caught only enough for dinner, and then sat down and watched the others.

When the fish stopped biting he drew up the anchor and pulled back to the cabin, where a great surprise awaited both him and his friends.