ons had they caught? I wondered, and
felt an angry feeling inside of me, 'cause if there was anything the
boys of the Sugar Creek Gang _didn't_ do, it was we didn't go into
anybody's barn and catch pigeons without the farmer asking us to, or
without us first asking the farmer if we could.

Right that minute, while Little Jim was stroking Mixy, and I had my
hand and one foot on the ladder ready to start up, I heard Pop's voice
calling from somewhere up in the haymow, and saying to us. "Bill! Are
you down there?"

"Yeah," I yelled back up to him, "Little Jim and I are _both_ here.
We're coming up!" Pop's voice had a worried sound in it, and also
sounded like maybe I had done something I shouldn't have, or else had
maybe left something _un_done which I should have done.

Then Pop's voice called down to us, and this time it sounded even more
like I thought it had, when Pop said, "Where'd you put my new ladder?
I can't find it anywhere."

New ladder! I thought, and wondered, What on earth! Why just yesterday
I'd used it to climb up to Snow-white's nest and had left it right
there, with the top of it resting on the beam on the south side of the
cupola.

"It's right there!" I yelled up to Pop, "Right there in the center of
the haymow, going up into the cupola."

"It IS not!" Pop yelled back down to me, "and I've looked all over the
haymow for it."

I looked at Little Jim, and he was still stooped over stroking Mixy
who was standing up now and stretching herself and reaching up with
her front claws and doing some kind of monkey-business with Little
Jim's trousers, taking hold, and letting go, and taking hold, and
letting go, and acting very contented.

Then I went lickety-sizzle up the ladder to the haymow and sure enough
Pop was right! The pretty new ladder which Pop had bought and which
I'd left right where I'd told Pop I'd left it, was gone.

"I left it right here," I said to Pop, and then I had a queer feeling
inside of me, as I thought about two boys whose names you already know
and wondered if they had stolen it. There wasn't a sign of the ladder
anywhere in the whole haymow, and I was looking in every direction.

"'Smatter?" Little Jim asked, when his head appeared at the top of the
ladder beside where I was standing, and he looked up at my and Pop's
astonished faces.

"Somebody's stolen our ladder," I said, "a brand new one Pop just
bought last week."

"_Stolen_ it?" Little Jim asked, and he had a puzzle