the other contained various kinds of rubbish. It took the prowler but a moment to find an empty bottle in the second can. Then he came straight over toward the rear window of the store, which was situated directly under Dick's own window.

"There's some mischief afloat," murmured Dick, unable to recognize his chum in the darkness. "I can't get down in time to catch him, but I'll mark him so that I'll know him when I overtake him."

Tip-toeing over to his washstand, Dick quickly picked up the water pitcher. He returned to his window just as Tom crouched under the store window with a bottle in his left hand and his felt hat in his right.

Then Tom struck the harmless blow against the window, at the same time breaking the bottle.

Smash!

Splash!

"Gracious!" gasped Dick, believing that the store window had been broken.

A yell from Tom arose as the contents of the pitcher deluged him.

Reade was up and away like a shot, reaching the street only to cause a hue and cry to be started after him as he ran.

So swiftly had Tom moved, that by the time Dick Prescott reached the street both pursuers and pursued were a block away and going fast. Dick was about to join the chase when his father called after him:

"Dick! Dick! Come back here!"

"Yes, sir," replied young Prescott, halting, wheeling, then springing back. "But that scoundrel smashed the rear store window!"

"No, he didn't," laughed Mr. Prescott. "That was Tom Reade, and he was playing a trick on you—-with our permission. Now he's being chased. Do you want to go out and aid that crowd in capturing him?"

"Of course I don't, sir," replied Dick, who knew full well that such a sturdy high school athlete as Tom Reade was in very little danger of being caught by any citizen runners to be found on the street at that time of night. "But what did Tom do, Dad?"

"I don't just know," admitted the bookseller. "Reade told us there would be a smash of glass, but that it would be harmless. He warned your mother, Dick, so that she wouldn't he startled when it came. Tom did the right thing in warning your mother. I wish all boys could realize that only cowards and fools go about frightening women."

"But something else happened," insisted Mrs. Prescott. "I wonder what it was?"

"Suppose we take a lantern and go out in the back yard and see," proposed Dick.

While Dick was finding the lantern the elder Prescott closed the front of the store, also drawing down the shades for the night.

Dick's mother followed him into the rear yard. The fragments of the bottle under one of the store windows told the whole story to one as experienced in jokes as Dick Prescott.

"But see how wet the ground is," Mrs. Prescott remarked after
Dick had explained the trick.

"That was because I didn't recognize the joker, and emptied the contents of my water pitcher on him just as he broke the bottle," Dick smiled. "Poor old Tom. That was really a shame!"

"But why did you pour the water on him?" asked Mrs. Prescott.

"Because I felt sure that the prowler was up to some mischief, and I wanted to mark him for identification, mother," Dick explained. "If we had found a fellow on the street looking as though he had just come out of the river, we'd have known our man, wouldn't we? Poor Tom! I don't blame him for letting out that yell when that drenching splash hit him."

"I hope he didn't get caught by the men who started after him," sighed Mrs. Prescott.

"Don't worry about Tom, mother," urged Dick. "No one about here could catch him, unless he happened to be a member of the Gridley High School Eleven!"

But was it true that Tom Reade had escaped without disaster?
That remained to be seen.

CHAPTER II

DODGE AND BAYLISS HEAR SOMETHING

"If we start to-morrow we must hustle all day long to-day," declared
Dave Darrin.

"That's true," agreed Greg Holmes, as the two boys stood on a side street not far from Main Street in Gridley.

"I wish the rest of the fellows would hurry along," Dave went on impatiently.

"At all events, I wish Dick would hurry up, as he has charge of the arrangements," Greg made answer. "Oh, my! But I'm getting anxious to see the fish nibble."

"I thought you didn't care especially about fishing," Dave murmured, regarding his friend.

"Probably, as far as mere fishing goes, I don't care so very much," young Holmes assented. "But when fishing means weeks of outdoor life, free from the noise and dust of the town—-then I'm simply wild about fishing as an excuse for getting away. Probably at the end of our fun we'll all be so sick of fish, from having had to eat so much of it, that any one of us will run away and hide when we suspect that the home folks are planning to send us on errands to a fish store. It would be all the same to me if we were going clamming, or hunting, or on any other kind of expedition, as long as it brought us to life under canvas and sleeping in the very place where pure, fresh air is made. Here comes Dick now!"

Young Prescott came swiftly up to his friends.

"Well, I think I've gotten about everything fixed," Dick announced.

"Tell us all the plans," urged Greg eagerly.

"What's the matter with waiting until all the other fellows show up?" Prescott inquired. "That will save me from having to go twice over the same ground. While we're waiting I'll tell you Tom Reade's latest one."

"A funny trick?" queried Greg.

"Needless question!" rebuked Dave Darrin. "Tell us about the latest one, Dick."

Thereupon the leader of Dick & Co. told of Tom's scheme for making people think one of their windows broken.

"Did it sound real?" Dave demanded.

"Did it?" inquired Dick. "It fooled me. I thought surely that our rear store window had been smashed to pieces. The sound is as natural as any joker could wish. But I haven't told you the other half of the story."

Thereupon Dick told about the pitcher of water dumped so unerringly on Tom, and of Reade's flight with the crowd pursuing him.

"I'd like to have been near enough to hear just what Tom said when the water struck him," laughed Darrin.

"Did the people running after him catch him?" asked Greg.

"I don't believe so," Dick Prescott smiled. "When Tom gets under way in earnest, his middle name, as you may have observed, is Double Speed—-and then a bit more."

"Who's talking about me?" gruffly demanded Reade, coming up behind the group. "Dick, you old rascal! That was a mean trick you played upon me when you hurled that water down on me last night! But say, didn't it sound just like a three dollar pane of glass going to pieces?"

"It certainly did," laughed Prescott. "And by the way, Tom, did the water, when it struck, make you think at all about what you've read of Niagara Falls?"

"Hang you!" grumbled Tom, shaking a fist. "Why did you pour the wet stuff on me like that?"

"Because I was fooled myself," Dick promptly rejoined. "I thought some rascal was plotting mischief to the store. I wanted to mark that rascal with a suit of wet clothes, then run down in the street and collar him with his wet clothes on as a marker. But Dad called me