"What are they going to do?"

The three chums asked these questions of Bart all at once.

"What do you think I am, a lightning calculator?" demanded Bart. "One at a time, please! The line forms on this side."

Then he proceeded to tell them what Sandy had revealed.

"Good for Sandy!" exclaimed Ned. "He treated us pretty mean once, but he's making up for it now."

"Yes, it was a good stroke of business the day we helped him load the overturned sleigh," said Fenn, referring to an incident of the previous winter, as related in "The Darewell Chums in the City."

"What are you going to do?" asked Frank quietly.

"I haven't made up my mind," Bart answered. "I thought we'd better tell the rest of the nine, and then think up some plan to turn the joke on the Upside Downs."

"Maybe it would be just as well not to tell the others on the nine,"

suggested Frank.

"Why?"

"If you do, it will surely come to the ears of the first-year boys that we are onto their game. Then they may change their idea and be up to some dodge that we can't fathom. I guess we four can spoil their plans."

"Well, maybe that would be the best way," admitted Bart. "What do you propose?"

"Are there plenty of boards, planks and boxes around your barn, Fenn?"

asked Frank.

"Lots of 'em."

"Then we'll set traps for our friends the enemy," said Frank. "They'll walk right into them."

Frank explained his plan more in detail as the boys rowed down stream.

His idea was to build a series of traps all about the barn, covering every approach. The traps would be made of boxes and boards, so arranged that when a boy walked on them he would tumble off or slip into a box, and the racket made would apprise those on watch, in the barn, of the approach of the enemy. Then they could sally out, and, while the Upside Down boys were in confusion, could easily disperse them.

"That's fine!" exclaimed Bart. "The very thing! We must get right to work on it tonight."

That evening the four chums spent in the barn back of Fenn's house. There was considerable hammering and pounding and fitting together of planks, boards and boxes.

The next afternoon the four boys worked hard perfecting their arrangements. There were four entrances to the barn, consisting of large sliding doors in front and rear, and a small door that gave entrance to the stable proper. The way to each of these was so arranged that any persons pa.s.sing along them would have considerable trouble in reaching the structure. It was impossible to walk along them and not step on a board, so fixed that it would tumble a box on the head of the enemy, precipitate the boys into a packing case, or upset a big pile of planks.

The fourth entrance to the barn was in the bas.e.m.e.nt through an old cow stable, long unused. The door had not been opened in a number of years, and the hinges were rusty.

However, the four chums oiled the door so it would work easily, cleared away a lot of rubbish and then had a means at hand of getting into the barn of which they felt sure none of the conspirators knew. That the Upside Down boys were aware of the other entrances Fenn was sure, as several of the first-year pupils had been seen about the barn Monday.

They did not, however, the chums thought, know of the traps.

Meanwhile preparations for the dinner went on. The food was purchased from a caterer in town, and was to be delivered at the barn Sat.u.r.day evening.

The chums arranged to have it taken in through the large front doors, the traps leading to them having been temporarily removed. After the victuals were safely stowed away it was planned to have a guard of boys constantly on hand inside the barn to protect them. The rumor of the threatened attack on the spread was known to all the nine now.

"I rather guess they'll have all the trouble they want before they play any tricks on us," said Bart, as he surveyed the defenses.

"Can they break in the doors, in case any of them get past the traps?"

asked Ned.

"I don't believe so," replied Fenn. "I've put extra hooks and bolts on, and there are heavy bars to the big front and rear doors."

Sat.u.r.day evening the materials for the spread were duly delivered at the barn. Half a dozen boys volunteered as guards. It was arranged that the members of the nine and their friends, numbering in all about twenty-five, should come in through the cow stable door.

The guards were soon busy arranging the improvised tables, storing the food away in places where, in case the conspirators did manage to get in, they would have hard work to find it. Several were engaged in getting lanterns ready to illuminate the banquet table.

In fact they were all so much occupied that they did not notice three boys who had made a long circuit and brought up in the fields back of the Masterson barn. These three boys approached warily in the dusk of the evening.

"Is that the way they're going in?" asked one of the trio, as he saw the cow stable door.

"That's the way all but one of 'em is going in," was the answer. "There's going to be one vacant place at the dinner."

"Whose?" asked another of the trio, of the one who seemed to be the leader.

"Ned Wilding's."

"Are you sure he will come along alone so we can grab him?"

"Alone or not we'll get him. In fact we did think one time of making a rush through the cow stable door, after we found out about their traps at the other entrances. But that door is so narrow we couldn't get in quick enough but what they could stand us off. So we decided on this plan.

We'll capture their presiding officer. It'll be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out."

"What you going to do with him?"

"Denny Thorp has that in charge. I think he's going to carry him to some vacant house."

"What are we to do?" asked the member of the trio who had first spoken.

"We're to stay here until the rest of the crowd arrives, and watch what happens. But the main thing is to capture Ned."

All unconscious of the change in the conspirators' plans, and congratulating themselves on the success of their method in guarding against surprise, the members of the nine and their friends began a.s.sembling one by one in the barn, as it grew dusk.

Most of them were on hand, and the tables, which were boards placed across saw-horses, had been spread with the good things to eat.

"Where's Ned?" asked Bart, as he noticed that the toastmaster was not yet present.

"He and Frank are coming together," replied Fenn. "Better take a look out, fellows, and see if you can spot any of the enemy."

Several boys mounted to the hay loft and looked out of the small door formerly used to take fodder into the barn. The watchers reported the coast clear.

They came down, and were standing about the table, waiting for Ned and Frank, who were the only absentees, when a loud cry came from the direction of the cow stable door.

"Rescue! Rescue! Darewells to the rescue! They're kidnapping Ned!"

"That's Frank's voice!" cried Bart. "Come on, fellows! They've played a trick on us and they've got Ned!"