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Page 6
"Go ahead, Bart! touch her off," implored little Sawyer, quivering with
excitement.
"Whoop! hurrah!" yelled a frantic chorus as Bart took a voluntary step
up the hill.
That decided him--patriotism was in the air and he was fully infected.
One or two of the larger boys advanced with him, but halted at a safe
distance, while the younger ones danced about and stuck their fingers in
their ears, screaming.
Bart got to the side of the cannon. It was silhouetted in the landscape
on a slight slant towards the stately mansion and grounds of Colonel
Harrington, in full view at all times of the magnate who had improved
its surroundings.
Bart made out a long fuse trailing three feet or more over the side of
the old fieldpiece. He blew the punk to a bright glow.
"Ready!" he called back merrily over his shoulder.
The hillside vibrated with the flutter of expectant juvenile humanity
and a vast babel of half-suppressed excited voices.
Bart applied the punk, there was a fizz, a sharp hiss, a writhing worm
of quick flame, and then came a fearful report that split the air like
the crack of doom.
CHAPTER III
COUNTING THE COST
Bart had quickly moved to one side of the cannon after lighting the
fuse, and was about twenty feet away when the explosion came.
The alarming echoes, the shock, flare and smoke combined to give him a
terrific sensation.
The crowd that had retreated down the hill in delightful trepidation now
came trooping back filled with a bolder excitement.
They had indeed "waked the natives," for gazing downhill against the
lights of the street and stores at its base they could see people
rushing outdoors in palpable agitation.
Some were staring up the hill in wonder and terror, others were starting
for its summit, among them two village officials, as demonstrated by the
silver stars they wore.
"They heard it--it woke 'em up, right enough!" shrieked little Sawyer
in a frenzy of happiness.
"Look yonder!" piped a second breathless voice. "Say, I thought I heard
something strike."
Dale Wacker came upon the scene--not limping, but chuckling and winking
to the cronies at his back.
"Pretty good aim, eh, fellows?" he gloated. "Stirling, you're a capital
gunner."
All eyes were now turned in a new direction--in that whither the muzzle
of the cannon was pointed.
The grounds of the Harrington mansion were the scene of a vivid
commotion. The porch lights had been abruptly turned on, and they
flooded the lawn in front with radiance.
Bart gasped, thrilled, and experienced a strange qualm of dismay. He
discerned in a flash that something heretofore always prominently
present on the Harrington landscape was not now in evidence.
The wealthy colonel was given to "grandstand plays," and one of them had
been the placing of a bronze pedestal and statue at the side of the
driveway.
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