have other motives; there is no telling: he may intend to captivate Sinfire by some deed of valor. John is the only unimpeachably sincere one among us: he wants to capture the burglars, and that is all. It will be a clever thing to do, and he has the temperament to enjoy it.
The next day we began to put our scheme in operation. Tom drove John and Henry in the farm-wagon. I had intended going with them, but some singular twinges in my right leg from the knee to the foot prevented me; I thought I must have rheumatism, and deemed it best, in view of the coming adventure, to run no risks. Tom has not yet been admitted to a knowledge of the whole of the mystery: he believes that we are actually going to the lake on Friday evening; and this persuasion of his will greatly increase the spread of the delusion among those whom we wish to reach, and will also obviate any possible indiscretion on Tom's part; for there is no telling but the one particular and confidential crony to whom alone he would venture to confide the great secret might turn out to be the very individual to whom it would be of the utmost possible use. In times like these your nearest friend may be your deadliest enemy: so it behooves to keep your eyes open.
Off they went, and in due time came back, having fully succeeded in their object, at least so far as filling the neighborhood with news of our proposed expedition was concerned. They had also loaded themselves down with sardines, Bologna sausage, smoked beef, canned soup, hard tack, and all other such miscellany as amateur pioneers are supposed to want. We could have fared sumptuously in the wilderness for a month on the supplies laid in for a single twenty-four hours. To be sure, most of the things would be as good next year as they were now, and this was probably not their first year, either.
"The army's stores are ample," said Henry, at last, after we had all been talking and laughing together for a while; "but how about the armory and the drill? Which of the warriors here present can perforate a green-turtle-soup-can at twenty paces?"
The challenge was received with acclamations. We all went out on the grass-plot at the side of the house towards the knoll, and Henry drove two forked stakes into the ground at the foot of the acclivity and close together, laid the soup-can in their crotch in such a way that its circular end was presented towards us at a height of five feet above the ground, then measured off twenty paces, and we all took our places, Sinfire standing by to adjudge and award the prize,—an Oriental dagger, with a jewelled hilt, which Henry had brought from Damascus. Then John shot first, and nicked one of the stakes, just below the crotch. It was a good liner, but a miss all the same. Henry came next, and his bullet grazed the top of the can, cutting a swath in the
