his mouth with his hand. "Whoever the unknowns are, they were
trying only to bother us. Or, if they were trying to injure us,
they were rank amateurs at the destructive game.

"But what was it that blew up, anyway?" queried Dave.

"It sounded like a keg of gunpowder each time," Tom declared.
"Yet to carry around five kegs of gunpowder would call for a
lot of muscular work."

"I'm going back to camp to put on my shoes," Dave declared.

"So am I," Danny Grin added.

"We'll wait here for you," said Dick. "When you come back there
may be light enough for us to look into matters a little."

Dave and Dan returned in a little more than five minutes afterwards.
The daylight was now becoming stronger.

"Are Greg and Harry keeping awake?" was Prescott's first question.

"They are," nodded Darrin.

"Then they can be trusted to look after the camp," Dick continued.

"And to look after the canoe," Reade amended.

"Now, we'll explore the woods a bit," Prescott went on. "We know
about where we heard the explosions, and we'll look for whatever