passers-by are cautioned that a mad dog, frothing at the mouth, has passed this way, going west. Officers have gone in pursuit of the animal, but passers-by may encounter the dog before the officers do. The dog is a huge English mastiff, without collar. Turn back unless armed!"

"Fine and cheery!" exclaimed Tom Reade, looking rather startled despite his light comment.

"And, just as it happens, this is the only road in the country that we want to use just at present," commented Dick Prescott.

"Shall we go ahead, keeping a sharp lookout?" asked Dave.

"I don't know," Dick muttered. "We'll have to think that over a bit."

"There are six of us, and we can cut good, stout clubs before we proceed farther," suggested Greg Holmes.

"Yes, and probably, if attacked, we could finish the dog," Dick went on. "Yet, most likely, before we did kill the brute, he'd have bitten at least one of us."

"I'll go on, if the rest of you fellows want to," observed Danny Grin. "At the same time, it looks like taking a big chance, doesn't it?"

"It's taking a chance, of course," Dick admitted. "The dog may be running yet, and we might never get within ten, or even twenty, miles of him. Or, the officers may have caught and killed the brute by this time. Or, the mastiff might bound at us from the woods at any moment now."

"Whether we go back or keep on, we're fairly likely to meet the mad dog," suggested Tom. "Mr. Chairman, I rise to move, sir, that we cut clubs at once, and do the rest of our talking afterwards!"

"The motion is seconded and carried," called Dick, darting into the woods. "Come on and find the clubs."

Less than forty seconds afterwards each of the six boys was cutting a stout sapling, which he forthwith trimmed.

"I believe I could kill anything but an ox with this," observed
Reade, eyeing his bludgeon.

"Look out!" called Danny Grin, as if in alarm.

In a twinkling Tom dropped his club, dashed at a young oak tree and began to climb, thinking that the dog had suddenly appeared.

"Stop that nonsense, Dan—-and everyone of you!" called Dick sharply. "Let no one knowingly give any false alarms, or we might disregard a real warning when it comes."

Tom sheepishly dropped to the ground, picked up his cudgel, then gazed at Dalzell with a look that had "daggers" in it.

"I'll owe you one for that, Danny Grin," Reade remarked, "and
I'm always careful about paying my debts."

"Now that we have our clubs," suggested Dick, "let's get back to the road and discuss what we're going to do."

"Surely," hinted Dave, "we can find some other road and keep on our way."

"Undoubtedly," Greg nodded. "But the mad dog might cross through the woods and be found waiting for us on that other road. Or, he may now be headed for the second lake, or even be there now."

"Let's vote on what we're going to do," urged Hazelton. "Dick, what do you say?"

"I don't know what to say," their young leader answered. "I don't like to see our party cheated out of our vacation. Neither do I care to take too many chances of having our vacation changed into a tragedy. I've never had hydrophobia, but I've a strong notion that it wouldn't be pleasant. I know just how you fellows feel. You hate to lose your fun."

"We do hate to lose our fun," agreed Darry.

"And yet you don't want to have an encounter with a dog that has hydrophobia."

"We don't," approved Tom Reade. "Dick, you have a truly wonderful intellect when it comes to successful guessing."

"There's a cloud of dust up the road to the west," discovered
Greg Holmes.

In an instant all eyes were turned that way.

"Can that be the dog?" asked Darry. "Something is traveling this way and stirring up a lot of dust."

Whatever the moving object was, it appeared to be half a mile away up the straight, dust-covered road.

"Until we find out what it is," Dick suggested, "I believe that tree climbing will prove healthful exercise."

Quickly they moved the push cart a little to one side of the road. Then they ran for trees, but every member of Dick & Co. retained his hold on his bludgeon.

The dust cloud was coming nearer. From the elevation of his perch in a tree Dick soon discovered and announced:

"It's a horse and wagon coming this way."

"Maybe it's the officers returning from the hunt," suggested Reade, who was on a lower limb of the next tree.

"There's only one man in the wagon, and he's whipping up the horse,"
Dick announced.

"There are good enough reasons for the man wanting his horse to hurry," chuckled Danny.

"Maybe the dog is in pursuit now," hinted Darrin.

Dick, who had the best view of the road to the westward, peered carefully.

"I don't see anything to suggest a pursuing dog," Prescott made answer. "If the dog is near, he must be running under the trees along the side of the road."

Greg climbed up beside his leader.

"Why, that man has stopped whipping the horse," young Holmes declared. "And is lighting his pipe. That doesn't look as though he were very much scared about anything."

"We'll stay where we are until we've talked with the man," Dick decided.

Just before reaching the other end of the covered bridge the driver, a farmer, and with what looked like a light load of farm produce in the body of the wagon, slowed his horse down to a walk, at which gait he drove over the bridge. Then, sighting the boys up in the trees, and each with a club, he reined up.

"Hello, boys!" he called drawlingly. "Who's been a-chasing you?
What scared you?"

"Read that notice, sir, tacked up at the bridge entrance," urged
Dick.

Alighting, and drawing a pair of spectacles from a vest pocket, the farmer complied.

"Mad dog, eh?" he drawled. "Sho!"

"Did you see anything of the brute?" called Darry.

"No; I didn't," answered the farmer. "Don't believe there is any mad dog along the way, either. I've reined up and talked with neighbors during the last hour and a half along the way. They didn't mention nothin' 'bout any peevish dogs. Now, it stands to reason that the officers would have stopped and warned folks along the road, don't it? And the neighbors would have passed the gossip with me, wouldn't they?"

"Didn't you see any officers coming from this way?" asked Dick.

"Nary one," rejoined the farmer. "Only fellers that passed me, coming from this direction, was two young dudes—-I sh'd say about your ages. They was in a high-toned speed wagon——-"

"Automobile?" asked Reade.

"Said so, didn't I?" drawled the farmer. "Them dudes looked mighty tickled about something. They was laughin' a whole lot and looked mighty well pleased with themselves. Do you reckon they was any friends of your'n, trying to have fun with you?"

"I can't recall any friends who would try to put up such a pleasant surprise for us," said Dick dryly, as he slipped down to the ground. "What did the fellows in the automobile look like, sir?"

That farmer possessed well-developed powers of observation, as was proved by the minute descriptions he gave of the two young men.