“All right,” agreed Bart, “only I wish I knew who that man was.” The time was to come when the boys would have given a great deal to have been able to penetrate the identity of the mysterious stranger. But the three chums gave little heed to that now, for they were intent on playing a joke that Bart had evolved. A little later, finding the front door unlocked, they were inside the school, just as the distant town clock boomed out the hour of midnight.
CHAPTER II
THE MISSING DIAMOND BRACELET
There were three lads who had entered the Darewell High School so mysteriously at midnight, and, had any one seen them, who was acquainted with them, he would have at once asked:
“Where is the fourth member of the quartette? Where is Stumpy Masterson?” For there were four lads in the town of Darewell who were so inseparable that they had come to be known as “The Darewell Chums.” Their names you are already familiar with, and some of my readers have met them before in the previous books of this series.
In the first volume, entitled, “The Heroes of the School,” there was related how the four friends took part in a strange mystery, and how they got at the bottom of it. At one time they went up in a balloon, and were captured by some men who were their enemies, so that, for a time, it looked dubious for the lads. But our heroes were wide-awake, and resourceful, and managed to take care of themselves.
Their home, as I have said, was in the town of Darewell, which was located on the Still River, a stream that flowed into Lake Erie. Living not far from that great body of water, the four chums often made trips to it, though more frequently they went swimming in or sailing on the river, in summer, and skated on it in winter.
In the second volume of the series, called “Ned Wilding’s Disappearance,” a story was told of how Ned tried to become a millionaire on his own account. He speculated in stocks, and to do this he had to go to New York. There he became mixed up in some peculiar transactions, and he thought it was necessary for him to disappear to avoid arrest. His chums, who followed him to the city, tried for some time in vain to find him, and poor Ned suffered many hardships before the affair was finally straightened out.