"Look!" she cried. "Look! It says 'T. Kirby, Rye.' Mr. Kirby sent it to us!"
Before any one could stop him, Ward had torn off a small corner of the wrapping paper.
"Fireworks!" he shouted. "I saw the red! I saw the red!"
He meant he had seen the brilliant red of the paper which enclosed the contents of the package.
Of course there was nothing to do but open the parcel. It was from Mr. Kirby, the cousin of the old hermit the children had befriended at camp, the same Mr. Kirby who had sent them their club pins and rings. Evidently he knew exactly what the Riddle Club liked, though he could not have known their special need for fireworks, since the package had been expressed before the explosion which had come so near to burning Ward.
"Say!" Fred was so excited he almost stuttered. "Say! I tell you what let's do—we won't say a word about these fireworks. We'll pretend we have only the stuff we bought this afternoon, and then Fourth of July night we'll set all this off and the Conundrum Club won't know what to make of it."
Every one agreed to this plan and the package was left in the office, Mr. Larue promising to bring it home with him that night. This proved to be a lucky decision, as far as secrecy was concerned, for halfway home the children met Carrie Pepper, the head of the rival club, accompanied by two other members of the Conundrum Club, Stella Dorman and Albert Holmes.
"Where you been?" asked Carrie sociably.
"We had to go and buy more fireworks," Fred answered, noting with alarm the blank look in Artie Marley's eyes.