CHAPTER XVII

--UP TO MISCHIEF

"Kidnapped!" repeated Tom, quite startled.

"Yes," declared Ben. "That much is sure."

"Did you see Harry?"

"No, but others did. When I went after him your father told me that Harry was grubbing out some brush in the old pasture lot. I went down there. The hoe he had been using was lying on the ground. His coat was hanging on the fence, but no Harry. I walked out beyond the fence to look around for him, and near the big gate was his cap, all tramped down in the mud. The ground looked as if there had been a scuffle."

"This all sounds pretty strange," commented Tom.

"I was standing wondering what next to do, when the old lady who lives near your house came over to me. She asked me whom I was looking for, and when I told her she said that about an hour before two men, strangers to her, had driven up in a covered wagon. They halted outside of the pasture lot. One of them stayed in the wagon. The other man went up to Harry and engaged him in conversation. He seemed to induce him by some argument or other to go out to the wagon. Once there, the woman said, the man tried to force Harry to go with them. He must have refused, for there was a scuffle, and the men threw Harry into the wagon and drove off with him."

"Did you tell my father?" inquired Tom, arising to his feet in a state of deep anxiety and excitement.

"I ran to a field where some men were working. They told me that your father had gone to Westport with a load of hay. Then I ran here to tell you about it."

"Ben, we must do something about this at once! You must stay here in charge."

"I will, Tom. What do you suppose those men carried Harry away for?"

"This is no time to lose in theorizing. I have my ideas, but never mind them now. I will hurry home and start a chase after him."

Tom lost no time. He gave Ben a few instructions, and then hastened homewards on a run. Within half an hour he was mounted on a horse, and following the main road west in the direction the kidnappers had taken. He had made a brief explanation to one of his father's field hands, and the man was started on horseback down the branching road.

Tom stopped at half a dozen farm houses and made inquiries, but found no one who had seen a wagon pass answering to his description. He reached in turn three small settlements, met with no success in his quest, and turned around and made for home, disappointed and concerned, but hoping that the hired man had met with better luck.

His messenger, however, had not returned, he found when he reached the farm. There was an hour of anxious waiting. Finally the man rode up.

"What news?" inquired Tom eagerly.

"I traced the wagon five miles," reported the man, "lost it at the crossroads, and couldn't get the trail again."

Tom hurried to the telephone and called up every exchange within a radius of twenty miles, explaining briefly but clearly what he wanted.

"About all you can do is to wait, Tom," said his mother, who tried to conceal her solicitude for the missing boy.

"It seems to me those men cannot get through the network of people watching out for them," spoke Tom. "I must do all I can, though, myself, for Harry."

Our hero started off again on horseback. He took another route this time. It was seven o'clock when he got back home again. No trace of the kidnappers had been reported.

Ben had locked up at the tower, and was waiting for Tom at the Barnes' home in a great state of impatience. Tom, after reporting to his mother, called his chum outside.

"Ben," he said, "I got a description of one of the men who drove the wagon, and I know who he is."

"You do?" exclaimed Ben.

"Yes--the man I told you about seeing, the day Harry was in swimming, and I discovered the tattoo marks on his shoulder."

"You don't say so!"

"I am pretty sure of it," declared Tom.

"That being true, it connects with the 'Donner' business!" cried Ben. "The sun, moon and stars message."

"Perhaps. If Harry is really the Ernest Warren they have been telegraphing about, someone was trying to find him."

"And they've done it, and gotten him!" cried Ben excitedly. "We'll never see him again, and we'll never know the mystery about him."

"You give up too easily, Ben," said Tom, and then he hastened to meet his father, who at that moment drove into the farm yard.

Mr. Barnes was a peculiar man. He was wilful and went to extremes where his likes and dislikes were involved. He had taken a great fancy to the busy, buoyant lad he had hired, and at once manifested the deepest interest in the particulars of the strange disappearance of Harry Ashley.

He turned his horses directly around and drove to the village. When he returned, he told Tom he had got a local constable to start at once and try to get some trace of the missing boy.

With that move all were forced to be content. Ben stayed at Tom's house all night, and the boys remained up late, hoping some word might come. The captors of Harry, however, seemed to have well planned their flight, for at the crossroads all trace of them had disappeared.

The next day went by with no report as to the fate of Harry. Tom and Ben took turns till late in the afternoon spelling one another in visits to the house, anxious and eager to hear some word about their missing comrade.

"We'll just have to wait," concluded Ben, as they locked up the tower that evening. "You see----"

There Ben suddenly interrupted himself. He halted, drawing Tom also to a dead stop.

"What's the matter, Ben?" inquired Tom in some surprise.

"S--sh! Ambush."

"Don't be mysterious, Ben," began Tom.

Then, following the indication of the pointed finger of his companion, Tom became as much startled and interested as his chum.

There was a dense stretch of wild rose bushes on a sandy hill about fifty yards distant from the tower. Protruding from these, plainly visible, was a pair of human feet.

"Some one spying on us," declared Ben in a quivering whisper. The air had been so full of mystery the past few days that Ben traced its continuance in any unusual happening.

"More like a sleepy tramp," observed Tom.

"Find out, will you?"

"I intend to."

Tom picked up a heavy stick, advanced quietly to the bushes, and brought it down with a force of a policeman's club directly across the flat soles presented.

"Thunder!"

The owner of the shoes leaped to his feet with a vivid exclamation.

"Oh, it's you, Bill?" spoke Tom instantly. "What in the world have you got here?"

Peering past Bill Barber, Tom observed a double-barreled shotgun where he had been lying down. Ben looked dreadfully suspicious. Bill flushed and stammered.

"Oh, just hunting," he spoke evasively.

"In that bunch of brush?" laughed Tom.

Then, placing a rallying hand on Bill's shoulder, he added: "Out with it, Bill, what are you up to?"

Bill's lips came grimly together.

"You won't interfere with me, if I tell?"

"Why should I?"

"Well, then, I'm watching your station here."

"What for?"

"Visitors."

"Indeed?"

"Trespassers, vandals, I had better say," went on Bill. "See here, I'm laying for somebody, partly for you, partly because I am interested myself. Tom Barnes, I want you to go straight home and leave me to my own affairs. You've got enough confidence in me to believe that I wouldn't harm you or your friends or your wireless, haven't you?"

"There's my answer," said Tom promptly.

As he spoke he extended the key to the trap door.

"No," dissented Bill, "I don't need that, but thank you just the same. The fellows I've got a tip about won't get as far as the tower."

"You won't hurt anybody, Bill?" questioned Tom gravely, with a glance at the shotgun.

"No, but I'll teach them a lesson they won't forget for a long time to come," was Bill Barber's significant reply.

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