ll fix the date of the
mound."

Dick went with a readiness which might have aroused our suspicions, and
hung over her shoulder while she rubbed vigorously away at the
worn-looking specimens.

"It's certainly coming off!" she cried with enthusiasm. "Oh, look!
There is a mark like a head, and some writing, and--it looks
like--why--why----!"

She held the coin up critically, and her face fell; as well it might,
for when the dirt was cleaned away, there appeared the unmistakable
profile of Queen Victoria, while on the other side was the familiar
figure of Britannia and the remains of the words "Half Penny"!

"Dick!" cried Cathy with sudden enlightenment.

But the boys were doubled up in such convulsions of jubilant mirth that
it was a few moments before they could gasp out any remarks.

"Done you, old girl, for once!" spluttered George.

"Oh! I really didn't think you'd be taken in by such an easy fake!"
shrieked Edward.

"Made it ourselves," explained Dick, between bursts of chuckles. "We
modelled it in clay, after the pattern of those pictures in the mater's
antiquarian book, and baked it in the oven. Then we crumbled the top
away, and stained the bottom with iron-water, and filled it with pigs'
bones and all the oldest coppers we could muster. We didn't bury it too
deep, because we knew you'd never fag to dig half the mound away. I dare
say the place _was_ soft! No doubt a rabbit _had_ been burrowing there!
Oh, I say! I feel quite weak with laughing!"

Cathy and I bore our chaffing with the best grace we could.

"It was really rather clever of them," said Cathy. "Of course it's a
dreadful sell, but we might find something genuine some day; only the
next time we mean to go hunting for antiquities we won't tell the boys
beforehand!"

All the same the affair rankled in our minds, and we came to the
conclusion that if we could possibly seize an opportunity we should like
to play a trick upon these determined practical jokers, so as to pay
them back to some extent in their own coin. It was rather difficult to
hit upon anything fresh, Cathy scorning such stale devices as apple-pie
beds or stitched-up trousers.

"Those are as old as the hills," she said. "And would scarcely amuse
them. I want to find something quite out of the common, and if possible
to give them a good fright into the bargain."

"Ghosts," I suggested.

"Um! No. It's rather hard to get up a clever ghost, they find it out
directly. You see the