"Talk about getting even," remarked Fenn. "I guess we did it all right!"

"I caught all the mice in our house," said Ned. "Dad says he wishes I'd take the job steady, though he didn't know why I was doing it."

"Alice tried to find out one night what I was going to do with the cheese I got to bait the trap with," Bart remarked. "I guess she knows now."

Meanwhile the boys of the Upside Down Club, much chagrined at the unexpected ending of their entertainment, were trying to induce the girls to go on dancing. They said all the mice had gone, which was probably true, but they couldn't get the young ladies to believe it.

"I'm going home!" declared Jennie Smith, and several other girls decided to go with her.

The boys made an ineffectual search for those who had played the trick.

They soon discovered that the bags had been thrown through the ventilator, but, by the time a committee of investigation had gone to the loft, the four chums were far away.

"We'll not say anything about this at school, Monday," Ned remarked as the chums prepared to separate that night. "Let it come from the other fellows."

"Oh, it will be town talk by to-morrow," declared Frank, as he started off down the road toward his uncle's house.

Mr. Dent's residence was about a mile outside of Darewell. The road leading to it was well lighted up to within half a mile of the Dent place, and then the lamps were few and far apart. Frank hurried on, thinking of many things besides the trick of the mice, for he had a real trouble, and one he had not yet shared with his chums. It was bothering him, and had been for some time. He wished he had someone he could take into his confidence.

As he neared his uncle's house he noticed there was a light in the sitting room. This was unusual, as his uncle and aunt were in the habit of going to bed early. They left no light for Frank, who had a key to the front door, and who carried matches to light the lamp always left on a table for him.

"I wonder if any one is sick?" the boy thought, as he approached the house.

He turned up a side path, as he wanted to get a drink at the well before going to bed, and the water in the house was not likely to be fresh. As he advanced cautiously through the darkness he heard voices, coming, evidently, from the direction of the front porch. Frank halted, and, as he did so, he heard his uncle's tones. Mr. Dent was saying:

"Of course it's too bad, but if he's violent, there's only one thing to do."

"That's all," the voice of a man replied. "We will have to keep him in the sanitarium for a while yet. I am just as sorry about it as you are.

But we must not let the boy know. It might have a bad effect on him."

Frank started. All his troubles seemed to come freshly to his mind. He knew the man talking to his uncle had something to do with them, and he resolved to find out more about the matter. He remained silent, hoping to hear additional talk, but the two had concluded their conversation, and the stranger could be heard walking down the gravel path toward the front gate. That was what the light had meant. Mr. Dent had received a visitor, and Frank determined to find out who it was.

"Well, I'll see you again when necessary," the stranger called to Mr.

Dent. "Good-night."

"Good-night," replied Frank's uncle, as he went into the house and shut the door.

Frank waited until the stranger was out on the path in front of the house. Then, keeping as much as possible in the shadows, the boy followed. He stole along, walking on the sod to deaden his footsteps, and soon found himself on the main highway. Just ahead of him he could see the figure of the man. He tried to see if he knew the stranger, but it was too dark.

"But I'll find out where you go," Frank declared to himself, "I'll get on the track of this mystery sooner or later, and I guess I've got a good start now."

All unconscious of being followed, the man hurried on. He seemed to know his way, for, though it was dark, and the path was uneven, he kept on at a good pace.

Frank was drawing closer, in the eagerness of his pursuit. He was not as careful as he had been to walk on the sod, and, after he had gone about half a mile, the boy suddenly stepped on a loose stone which made him slip. The sound was heard by the stranger, who was about one hundred feet in advance, and he turned quickly.

"Who's there?" he asked sharply.

Frank did not answer.

"Who's there?" the man inquired again, and there was menace in his tones.

Frank crouched down to get in the shadow of a big tree.

"I know someone is following me," the man went on, in a sharp voice.

"Whoever it is I warn him he had better come no further. If it's money you're after I'll tell you I am armed, and I'll not hesitate to shoot. If it's a beggar I have nothing for you. If it is anyone else I warn him I will stand no trifling. I will say nothing to you, and if you follow me you do so at your peril. Be warned in time and go back. You must not meddle in this affair, whoever you are. I shall protect myself if I am attacked!"

The voice ceased, and there sounded a click in the darkness, that might indicate the man had c.o.c.ked his revolver. Frank did not move. He hardly breathed. He did not know what to do, for he had not counted on being discovered.

"Remember! Follow me at your peril!" the man exclaimed again. Then, turning quickly he ran ahead in the darkness, and was soon lost to sight.

CHAPTER IX

A STRANGER IN TOWN

Dazed by the sudden ending to his chase, Frank remained a while standing by the tree. He had half a mind to ignore the warning and keep on after the man, but on second thought felt it would be an unwise thing to do.

"I must try another plan," the youth said to himself. "I will get at the bottom of this mystery concerning me. I did not know Uncle Abner was mixed up in it. I wonder if I had better ask him about it?"

Frank debated this question in his mind as he went back home. Then he decided he would say nothing about what he had overheard until there was a chance of learning more about it.

"Is that you, Frank?" his uncle asked him, as the boy went into the house a few minutes later.

"Yes, uncle."

"Well, be sure you lock up well. There have been thieves about, I hear, and we don't want 'em to get in here."

Frank wondered at his uncle's caution, for Mr. Dent was not usually nervous. It was also news to Frank to learn that there were thieves about.

"Have you seen any?" he asked his uncle.

"No, but Jim Peterson's hired man was over a while ago, and told me his dogs had barked at some tramps pa.s.sing in the road. There are strangers in the vicinity, I guess."

Frank wondered if the dogs had barked at the stranger who had been at the Dent house a little while before, but he said nothing about it, and, soon went to bed.

As the chums had antic.i.p.ated, the breaking-up of the Upside Down Club dance created more talk among the High School pupils than had anything else in the line of sports and fun since the inst.i.tution was built. The members of the ball team, and their friends, who had been let into the secret, preserved a discreet silence about the affair, and would answer no questions.

Although it was generally believed that the four chums had been the prime instigators of the affair, they would admit nothing, and many were the conjectures about the mice.

As for the girls, after their first fright, they laughed as heartily as did the boys over the sudden ending of the dance. The only pupils who seemed angry over the matter were the boys on the dance committee, who were incensed at the breaking up of the affair.

"I know those Darewell Chums had the most to do with it," said Denny Thorp, who was the leader of the crowd that had captured Ned. "I'll get even with them."

"It looks to me as though they had gotten even with us," remarked Peter Enderby, Denny's chum. "They paid us back, good and proper."

"That's all right. What we did wasn't half as mean as letting those mice loose and spoiling the dance."