Frank wondered at his uncle's caution, for Mr. Dent was not usually nervous. It was also news to Frank to learn that there were thieves about.
"Have you seen any?" he asked his uncle.
"No, but Jim Peterson's hired man was over a while ago, and told me his dogs had barked at some tramps passing in the road. There are strangers in the vicinity, I guess."
Frank wondered if the dogs had barked at the stranger who had been at the Dent house a little while before, but he said nothing about it, and, soon went to bed.
As the chums had anticipated, the breaking-up of the Upside Down Club dance created more talk among the High School pupils than had anything else in the line of sports and fun since the institution was built. The members of the ball team, and their friends, who had been let into the secret, preserved a discreet silence about the affair, and would answer no questions.
Although it was generally believed that the four chums had been the prime instigators of the affair, they would admit nothing, and many were the conjectures about the mice.
As for the girls, after their first fright, they laughed as heartily as did the boys over the sudden ending of the dance. The only pupils who seemed angry over the matter were the boys on the dance committee, who were incensed at the breaking up of the affair.
"I know those Darewell Chums had the most to do with it," said Denny Thorp, who was the leader of the crowd that had captured Ned. "I'll get even with them."
"It looks to me as though they had gotten even with us," remarked Peter Enderby, Denny's chum. "They paid us back, good and proper."
"That's all right. What we did wasn't half as mean as letting those mice loose and spoiling the dance."