outrage. It would be set down as an act of revenge on the
part of some enemy of Yetmore's; and so Tom and Joe thought, too, when I
went back to the house and told them about it.

"That'll be the theory, all right," said Tom. "And as far as I see, we
may as well let it go at that. We have no evidence to present, and it
would look rather like malice on our part if we were to charge Long John
with blowing his best friend's house to pieces just because we happen to
suspect him of it. And so, I guess, boys, we may as well lay low for the
present: we shan't do any good by putting forward our own theories.

"I dare say," he went on, after a moment's reflection, "I dare say, if
we were to go around telling what we thought and why we thought it, we
might influence public opinion; but, when you come to think of it, we
have no real proof; so we'll just hold our tongues. Are you in a hurry
to get home?"

"No," I replied. "We shan't be able to plow for two days at the very
least, so there is nothing to hurry home for."

"Well, then," said Tom, "I'll tell you what I wish you'd do. I must go
back to work in a few minutes, but I wish you two would go down town and
hear what folks have to say about this business, and then come back here
and have dinner with me at twelve. Will you?"

"All right," said I. "We'll do that."

We found the town in a great state of excitement. Everybody was talking
about the explosion, which, as the newspaper said, "would cast a blight
upon the fair fame of Sulphide." Yetmore's store was crowded with
people, shaking hands with him and expressing their indignation at the
outrage; the universal opinion being, as we had anticipated, that some
miscreant had done it out of revenge.

Joe and I, squeezing in with the rest, presently found ourselves near
the counter, when Yetmore, catching my eye, nodded to me and said:

"How are you, Phil? I didn't know you were in town."

"Yes," said I, "we came in last evening and spent the night in Tom
Connor's house."

Yetmore started and turned pale.

"In Tom Connor's house?" he repeated, huskily.

"Yes," I replied. "We were asleep in his back room when that explosion
woke us up."

At this Yetmore stared at me for a moment, and then, as he realized how
narrowly he had missed being party to a murder, he turned a dreadful
white color, staggered, and I believe might have fallen had he not sat
himself down quickly upon a sack of potatoes.

A draft of water soon bro