l Dodge
pointed to a tangle of bushes.

"That'll be a good place to hide with the siren. You get in there
with it, but don't start it until about sixty seconds after you
hear the big noise. Then I'll hustle right back here to you."

"Don't let any of Dick Prescott's friends catch you," urged Bayliss,
who would have gasped had he known that at that moment two of
them crouched close enough to hear every word.

Now Bert hastened down the slope, carrying a fireworks' bomb very
much like those that he and Bayliss had set off on the opposite
side of the lake on another evening long to be remembered.

Treading cautiously, Bert reached a point not far distant from
the doorway of the camp tent. Here, crouching in the screening
bushes, Bert placed the bomb in position. It was only a fireworks'
bomb of the kind used on Fourth of July nights. It was harmless
enough to one who stood more than thirty feet from it.

"The fuse will burn a minute before it goes off," murmured Bert
to himself. "That will give me almost time to reach Bayliss before
the big noise comes. The noise will bring them all out of the
tent. Then the remainder of our programme will do the rest."

But, even as Bert reached for the match with which to touch off
the fuse he heard Dalzell call in a voice audible at the distance:

"Look at those things up in the air, Tom!"

"He has sighted our 'ghosts,'" laughed Bert to himself.

"They must be some sort of signal kites, flown by the moonshiners,"
answered Reade in an interested tone.

"Kites! Is that what he takes our ghosts for?" wondered Bert
Dodge in deep disgust.

But the mention of the word "moonshiners" gave the listener a
start. In a general way he knew that "moonshiner" is the term
applied to men who try to cheat the United States Revenue Service
by distilling liquors on which they pay no tax. Bert had heard
that moonshiners are deadly men, indeed, and that they make little
of shooting down the government officers who are sent to ferret
out their hiding places and arrest them.

"I wish we hadn't run into those moonshiners," said Danny, rather
dolefully. "And I wish Dick hadn't thought it necessary to go
and send word to the United States authorities. I'm afraid there's
going to be an awful row here to-night."

"What's that?" wondered Bert, pricking up his ears.

"I rather wish Dick hadn't been in such an awful rush," Tom admitted
slowly. "Anyway, we fellows should have gotten out