ut I do
smell smoke, and that looks bad, as the plight of Bluebeard's wife."

There could be no questioning that what Tubby said was so, for little
spirals of penetrating smoke had commenced to come under the door, so
that they could already feel their eyes begin to smart.

Rob went back to the open window to watch. He knew that the thing
calculated to help them most of all would be the flitting of the Uhlan
troop. If the raiders would only gallop away from town there would be an
opportunity for the three Boy Scouts to make their way from the garret
of the doomed inn.

"Are they showing any signs of going yet?" asked Tubby, rubbing one
hand continually over the other; and then he burst out into a half
hysterical fit of laughter as he went on to add: "D'ye know, when I said
that it made me think of Bluebeard, don't you remember where the wife
was waiting to be called down to lose her head, and expected her
brothers to come to the rescue, she had her sister watching out of the
window for a cloud of dust on the road? And all the while she keeps on
asking: 'Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see anyone coming?'"

"I guess you're not as badly rattled as you make out, Tubby," suggested
Merritt, "when you can joke like that with the house on fire. In this
case you're wanting to know whether there's anybody going. Well, they're
here yet, I'm sorry to tell you."

"But I think they are getting together to ride away," Rob added.

"Did they shoot down many of the poor villagers on account of that
sniper?" asked the fat scout anxiously.

"No, I couldn't see anything like that," Rob hastened to assure him.
"There was some firing, but it looked to me as if it might be done for
effect, just like cowpunchers ride into town, yelling, and shooting
their guns in the air. But at the same time I think they must have got
the person who did the sniping."

"Yes, I heard several shots that seemed to come from inside that next
house," Merritt admitted. "It'll certainly be his funeral pyre. The
house is all aflame, and burning fiercely."

"Poor chap! he must have been crazy to fire on Uhlans when they were in
such force," Tubby declared. "They never refuse a dare, I've heard said.
And believe me, I don't ever want to test them. I hope they hear the
call soon now. That fire must be getting pretty close to us by this
time, boys!"

Rob opened the door of the garret a trifle, after having pushed back the
heavy trunk. Immediately a cloud of smo