hat while one might be on guard for fifty-nine
minutes, if he relaxed just for a breath, that was almost sure to be the
time when something would happen. How often he had proved that when
fishing, and taking his eye from his float just to glance up at some
passing bird, when down it would bob, and he had missed a chance to hook
a finny prize.

The time passed on.

Three separate times did Andy look at his little dollar nickel watch,
and in the bright moonlight he could see that it was now after eleven.
He was beginning to believe that if there was anything doing that night,
it must come about very soon, when he thought he heard a sound down the
road that made him think a car that had been coming along had stopped
short.

Thrilled with the expectation that a change was about to occur, he sat
up a little more eagerly, and continued to scan the line of fence, as
well as the field lying between the road and the helpless hydroplane.

CHAPTER III

NOT CAUGHT NAPPING

Five, ten minutes passed.

Andy was beginning to fear that after all he had been mistaken, and that
it had been some other sound he had heard when he thought a car had
stopped down the road toward Bloomsbury.

Then all at once he detected a movement over at the fence, and the
figure of a man or boy was seen to quickly clamber over, dropping in the
field. Even as he looked a second followed suit, then a third and even a
fourth.

"Whew! what's all this mean?" Andy whispered to himself, as he took
notice of the fact that there was quite a procession of fellows changing
base from the road to the field: "Percy and Sandy thought they might
need help in their little game of smashing our machine, or carrying it
off somewhere, so as to give us a bad scare; and I reckon they've picked
up a couple more of the same kind as themselves. Well we ought to be
able to take care of four just as easy as two 5 and the howl will be
all the louder, I guess."

He moved over a little, and with the toe of his shoe nudged Felix under
the ribs.

"Quit shovin' there!" muttered the farm hand, possibly thinking he was
in bed with some other boy.

Luckily the night breeze was making the windmill turn, not very far
away; and as it needed oiling, there was a constant succession of
squeaks and groans; so that the chances of Felix being heard when he
spoke in this way were very small. Andy would not take any further risk
but creeping over shook the boy roughly.

"Wake up,