etter of instructions from Mr. Leslie concerning the
sale of the unclaimed express packages, he felt a certain spice of
pleasant anticipation injected into the business routine.

"Why, it will be a regular circus!" said Darry Haven that afternoon,
when Bart told him about it. "Last year they advertised the sale at
Marion. I was up there at my uncle's. All the farmers came in for miles
around, and the way they bid, and the funny things they found in the
packages, made it jolly, I tell you!"

When Bart got through with the routine work the next day, he started in
to formulate his plans for the sale.

It was to take place in thirty days, and the superintendent had relied
on Bart's judgment to make it a success.

Darry Haven came in as Bart was laboring over an advertisement for the
four weekly papers of Pleasantville and vicinity.

"Here," he said promptly, "you are of a literary family. Suppose you
take charge of this, and get up the matter for a dodger, too."

"Say, Bart," said Darry eagerly, "we can print the dodgers--my brother
and I--as good as a regular office. You know we've got a good amateur
outfit at home. Father was an editor, and I'll get him to write up a
first-class stunner of an advertisement. Can't you throw the job our
way?"

"If you make the price right, of course," answered Bart.

"We can afford to underbid them all," declared Darry; and so the matter
was settled.

"Oh, by the way," said Darry, as he was about to leave--"Lem Wacker's
out of a job again."

"You don't surprise me," remarked Bart, "but how is that?"

"Why, Martin & Company are buying green peppers at seventy cents a
bushel. They heard that down at Arlington someone was offering them to
the storekeepers at one dollar for two bushels, investigated, detected
Dale Wacker peddling the peppers from factory bags, and found that his
uncle, Lem, was mixed up in the affair. Anyway, Dale's father had to
settle the bill, and they fired Lem."

"Mr. Lem Wacker is bad enough when at work," remarked Bart, "but out of
work I fear he is a dangerous man. All right!" he called, hurrying to
the door as there was a hail from outside.

Colonel Harrington's buckboard was backed to the platform and its driver
was unloading a large trunk.

Bart helped carry it in, dumped it on the scales, went to the desk, got
the receipt book, and reading the label on the trunk found that it was
directed to Mrs. Harrington at Cedar Springs, the summer resort to whi