"He wasn't very well dressed," observed Harry.

"Yet he didn't look like a tramp," Dave put in.

"But the man himself, and the fact that he's hurt or dead, are
our two first points to consider," spoke Dick quickly. "If he's
hurt we are bound to bring him help. If he's dead, we'll have
to notify---some one."

"I'd like to go back there and have a look at him," quoth Tom,
"but the biggest explosion of all may come out of that cottage
at any moment now."

"Yet the facts are that another explosion hasn't come, and that
the man ought to have help, as a matter of common decency," Dick
urged.

"I'll run to the nearest house where people are living," suggested
Tom, pulling off his jacket and making ready for a run.

"What are you going to tell the folks?" Prescott queried. "That
the poor fellow is living or dead? I'm going back to find out
which."

"We'll all go," offered Dave.

"But what happened to Rip and his mean crew?" asked Hazelton.

"We haven't seen any signs that they were in the cottage at all,"
Dick responded. "If they were, as none of them came out, they