t?"

"You stand on ground that no one can dispute," nodded Dick. "But
how did the explosive come to be in a building that belongs to
the water company, and which is supposed not to have been occupied
in some years?"

"What was the man doing in there, for that matter?" demanded Tom.

"He wasn't very well dressed," observed Harry.

"Yet he didn't look like a tramp," Dave put in.

"But the man himself, and the fact that he's hurt or dead, are
our two first points to consider," spoke Dick quickly. "If he's
hurt we are bound to bring him help. If he's dead, we'll have
to notify---some one."

"I'd like to go back there and have a look at him," quoth Tom,
"but the biggest explosion of all may come out of that cottage
at any moment now."

"Yet the facts are that another explosion hasn't come, and that
the man ought to have help, as a matter of common decency," Dick
urged.

"I'll run to the nearest house where people are living," suggested
Tom, pulling off his jacket and making ready for a run.

"What are you going to tell the folks?" Prescott queried. "That
the poor fellow is living or dead? I'm going back to find out
which."

"We'll all go," offered Dave.

"But what happened to Rip and his mean crew?" asked Hazelton.

"We haven't seen any signs that they were in the cottage at all,"
Dick responded. "If they were, as none of them came out, they
must be badly hurt---perhaps worse."

As a matter of fact, Ripley and his party had not gone into the
cottage, but had continued directly towards their homes.

That grisly thought gave all the boys a shudder as they plodded
up the slope, between the bushes and thence stepped into the clearing.

"Talk about dreaming!" muttered Dick, halting abruptly and staring
hard at the ground around the cottage.

In the first place, the cottage door was closed. There was no
smoke now coming out of the chimney, and all looked peaceful and
deserted, save for the presence of the Grammar School intruders.
There was no injured man lying on the ground.

"Crackey!" gasped Greg. "Yet we didn't all dream together, did
we?"

"Certainly not," muttered Dick, again starting forward. The others
followed him.

"This is where we saw the man fall, isn't it?" asked Dick.

"Yes," nodded Greg.

"But there was blood on the ground then," urged Dave. "I don't
see any now."

"It must have been goblin blood, then," laughed Tom rather unsteadily,
for this mystery began to look unearthly.

"Hol