or more from the main road.

"What have you been doin' 'round here?" Joe shouted, angrily, and the
amateur detective halted long enough to say:

"You think you're mighty smart, Joe Potter, but you'll find there are
some folks that can give you points. What I've done to you this time
ain't a marker 'longside of what it'll be when I try my hand again."

Then Master Fernald resumed his flight, much to Joe's surprise, and
halted not until he was within the friendly shelter of the trees.

"Now, I wonder what he meant by all that talk? It seems like he was more
of a fool this mornin' than I ever knew him to be before."

At that moment Joe saw, or fancied he saw, a tiny curl of blue vapour
rising from the corner of the barn, and, as he stood gazing in that
direction, uncertain whether his eyes might not have deceived him,
another puff of smoke, and yet another, arose slowly in the air, telling
unmistakably of what Master Fernald had done.

Joe darted into the house, and seized the water-pail, as he cried,
excitedly:

"Come on quick, Plums! Dan's set the barn a-fire! Get anything that you
can carry water in, and hump yourself lively!"

"But what'll I do with the princess?" Master Plummer asked, helplessly.

"She'll have to take care of herself," Joe cried, as he ran at full
speed towards the smoke, which was now rising in small clouds, giving
token of flames which might soon reduce aunt Dorcas's little home to
ashes.

CHAPTER XV.

AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.

It was really the princess who saved aunt Dorcas's home from
destruction. Had she not seen Dan Fernald, as he made his way through
the orchard, the barn would most likely have been in a blaze before Joe
or Plums were aware of the fact.

Thanks to her warning, Joe saw the smoke before the fire gathered
headway, and when he arrived on the scene, the flames had but just
fastened upon the side of the barn.

Plums, aroused to something like activity by the knowledge of danger,
followed Joe with remarkable promptness, and the amount of water thus
brought by both was sufficient to extinguish what, a few moments later,
would have been a conflagration.

Not until he had pulled the charred sticks from beneath the end of the
barn, and assured himself every spark had been drowned out, did Joe
speak, and then it was to relieve his mind by making threats against the
would-be incendiary.

"It's all well enough for a woman like aunt Dorcas to tell about doin'
good