en! what in the world is that?"

A rattling of tin pans came to their ears, as if one of the boys in
prowling around had accidently upset a bench on which a milk bucket and
some flat tinware had been airing.

"That settles it! He'll hear all that row and be out on us in a jiffy!"
said Paul, annoyed because the affair had not gone off according to
schedule.

"Look! there's a light sprung up inside the house. He's getting his
trousers on, all right, and the sooner we skip out the better!" declared
Jack.

The boys now came running from every direction, while sounds from within
the nearby farmhouse told that Old Peleg must be switching on his heavy
boots.

So Paul, knowing that the only thing left now was a hasty flight, gave
the signal arranged for. It meant every fellow for himself until they
had put a reasonable distance between themselves and the seat of danger.
Then they could meet at a given place, and go home, laughing over the
whole affair, and wondering what Peleg would think when he saw what a
miraculous transformation had taken place while he slept.

Paul happened to be the very last to run away. Instead of passing out by
way of the gate as most of the others did, Paul started to pass over the
fence at an inviting point, where two of the bars seemed to be down, and
he could gain the adjoining woodlot, from which he might reach the road
at his pleasure.

But alas! the best of plans often go amiss. And that gap that yawned in
the fence proved a delusion and a snare.

Hardly had Paul made the jump over the two lower bars than he found
himself suddenly jerked down, and his head came with a crash on the
ground, causing him to see a myriad of stars.

Nor was this all. An unknown power at the same time seemed to lift his
lower extremities up in the air at least two feet, so that he appeared to
be trying to swim on dry land.

For a moment he was puzzled to account for this remarkable happening;
but as his head cleared a bit, and the stars ceased to shoot before his
mental vision, he began to get an idea as to what had happened.

Apparently the fellows who had painted the farmer's pigs on the other
night must have entered his place from the woods, and through this gap
in the fence.

Old Peleg had remembered, and anticipating another invasion sooner or
later, he had succeeded in arranging some sort of ingenious trap on the
spot.

In jumping Paul had set off the trigger, with the consequence that a
noose h