To say that the usual amount of sleeping was done in Ogleport that night would be to trifle with truth but, for all that, everybody was astir bright and early the next morning.

Why not, when there would be so remarkable an opportunity for everybody to ask everybody else:

“What do you think about it?”

Even Zeb Fuller’s name was less frequently on the lips of men than on the former occasion, for this was something apparently beyond him.

And yet Zeb’s “chores” had been done at railway speed that morning, and there was that in his eyes which might have been very suggestive to a man that knew him well.

Hardly had Bar and Val finished their breakfast before word was brought them by Mrs. Wood that the Fuller boy was asking for them.[Pg 282] “And you’d better look out for him or he’ll get you into all sorts of difficulty.”

Zebedee’s errand was a very peaceful and proper one, however, for he merely proposed to join them in their day on the lake, if they were going, and to show them some things he reckoned they had not yet seen.

It is possible that George Brayton would have willingly kept Bar and Val within reach that day, but they were off with Zeb before he had a chance to offer any objection. Very quiet was Zeb, till the three were well out of the village, and then he turned suddenly upon Bar, with:

“He’d ha’ found it out, after all, if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Why,” said Bar, somewhat taken by surprise, “did you find it out?”

“Can’t say I did,” said Zeb, as if ashamed of such a confession, “but I knew that rope along the timber and under that wheel had something to do with it. So I kept between him and that as much as I could.”

“He’d ha’ Found It Out, if It Hadn’t been for Me”

“You’re a trump, Zeb,” shouted Bar. “I wondered myself how it was he failed to see that, dark as it was, when they had so many lanterns.[Pg 283] But there they were, all of them looking up and couldn’t see it.”

“Brayton’s was the only good pair of eyes among ’em,” said Zeb, “and he was looking up, too, most of the time. But will it toll again?”

“How should I know?” asked Bar.

“Look here,” exclaimed Zeb; “there isn’t another chap in or about Ogleport that can do that belfry climbing. Brayton understands that as well as I do.”

“I’m afraid he does,” said Val, thoughtfully. “If there should be a wind this afternoon, now?”

“Oh! that’s it, is it?” exclaimed Zeb. “Why didn’t I think of that before? I give it up. You fellows beat me. To think that I should never have thought of the wind!”

There was little more to be done except to explain the exact particulars, and when Bar had done that, Zeb stopped in front of him and removed from his head the broad-brimmed and somewhat battered “straw,” saying,

“Barnaby Vernon, you can take my hat. I think I must emigrate.”

“Emigrate?” said Val Manning.

[Pg 284]“Yes,” replied Zeb, dolefully; “there isn’t room for him and me in the same village. And yet I must remain and see how he and Solomon will work together. Old Sol has his eye on you, my boy, but you needn’t be afraid of George Brayton. I’ve great confidence in George.”

But the boys were not the only part of the village population that continued to be exercised about the bell business.

Dr. Dryer instituted what he called “an exhaustive analysis of the mysterious phenomenon” at an early hour in the forenoon, but he never put his head above the “deck,” and he acquired no a............