down round a curve, and turned to go down across the ridge. Here was
the spot where the rich guy would presently come. He looked the ground
over, with his bike safely hidden below road level. With a sturdy set
of satisfaction to his shoulders, and a twinkle of fun in his eye, he
began to burrow into the undergrowth and find branches, a fallen log,
stones, anything, and drag them up across the great state highway till
he had a complete barricade.

There had come a silverness in the sky over the next eastern mountain,
and he could see the better what he was doing. Now and again he stopped
cautiously and listened, his heart beating high with fear lest after
all the rich guy might arrive before he was ready for him. When the
obstruction was finished he got out a large piece of card board which
had been fastened to the handle bars of his wheel, and from a box also
fastened on behind his saddle he produced his can of paint and a brush.
The moon was beginning to show off at his right, and gave a faint
luminus gleam, as he daubed his letters in crudely.

"DETOUR to SABBATH VALLEY.
Rode flooded. Brige down."

His card was large, but so were his letters. Nevertheless in spite of
their irregularity he got them all on, and fastened the card firmly to
the most obvious spot in the barricade. Then with a wicked gleam of
mischief in his eye he looked off down the Highway across the ridge to
where some two miles away one Pat must be awaiting his coming, and gave
a single mocking gesture common to boys of his age. Springing on his
wheel he coasted down the humps and into the darkness again.

He reflected as he rode that no harm could possibly be done. The road