towns to be
on the lookout for them, and some of us will hitch up and drive along
the different roads. They can't have got very far, and we may get 'em
yet."

Later on, as the boys were on their way home, Jim chuckled.

"What are you laughing about, Jim?" asked Bob.

"I was just thinking," Jim replied, "that it was mighty lucky they
didn't ask Fred how he happened to be in Sam Perkins' barn."

CHAPTER XII

OFF FOR RALLY HALL

As Teddy had clearly foreseen, all that had happened before was as
nothing, when Uncle Aaron learned that his cherished watch was gone,
probably forever.

He stormed and raged and wondered aloud what he had done that he should
be saddled with such a graceless nephew. It was in vain that Mr. Rushton
offered to make good the money loss.

"It isn't a matter of money," he shouted. "I've had that watch so long
that it had come to be to me like a living thing. I wouldn't have taken
a dozen watches in exchange for it. Big fool that I was ever to come to
Oldtown."

All the amateur detective methods of the village constable ended in
nothing. And as day after day passed without news, it began to be
accepted as a settled fact that the culprits would never be found.

One happy day, however, came to lighten the gloom of Uncle Aaron. And
that was the day that the Rushton boys said good-by to Oldtown and
started for Rally Hall.

"Thank fortune," he said to himself, "they're going at last! A little
longer and I'd be bankrupt or crazy, or both."

But if Uncle Aaron was delighted to have them go, nobody else shared
that feeling, except Jed Muggs.

That worthy was in high glee, as he drove up to the Rushton home on that
eventful morning, to take them and their trunks to the railroad station
at Carlette.

Although he had made a pretty good thing, in a money way, out of the
accident, charging Mr. Rushton a great deal more than would have made up
the damage, he had by no means forgiven Teddy for the fright and the
shock he had suffered on that occasion. The Fourth of July incident of
the painted horses, of which he firmly--and rightly--believed Teddy to
have been the author, also still "stuck in his crop."

The old coach and horses swung up to the gate, and Fred and Teddy came
out. They had had a private parting with their parents, and now the
whole family, including Bunk, had come out on the veranda to see them
off.

Mr. Rushton was grave and thoughtful. Mrs. Rushton was smiling bravely
a