"I don't believe so," said Rob. "When he's like this, he'd rather be let alone than anything else; and he won't try to go beyond the hammock. I don't think I'll go."
Poor Rob! How often and how long he regretted this decision!
The bonfire was ready and Ted applied the match. Instantly the flame began to crackle through the dry twigs, and soon it mounted in a roaring cone high above the pile of brush, dry as tinder, for no rain had fallen for more than a week. The boys joined hands and frisked about the fire; then, arming themselves with long poles, they thrust them into the midst of the blaze, stirring up a cloud of tiny sparks and larger flakes of fire that floated up and away in the gentle September breeze. Of course it was warm exercise, but what boy minds that, when it is a question of some frolic? Let him have to work, and then the temperature at once becomes an important question, and there is danger of getting overheated; but with play, no such slight matters are taken into consideration. Although the bonfire was dying down, the fun was still at its height. The boys were poking the embers up into a pile, preparatory to the prudent sport of jumping over them, when Ted suddenly exclaimed,—
"Bert! Boys! The little barn!"
Near the bonfire, much, very much nearer than they realized, stood a small building, half barn, half shed, that for years had been used for storing hay. It was a favorite place with the boys on rainy days, and they never wearied of playing hide and seek through a maze of elaborately constructed tunnels, or of lying on their backs in the sweet-smelling mows, discussing school, club, baseball, and other vital interests. Here Fred had held a sort of court the first time he had joined the boys in the old way; and here he used often to be with them, during the long weeks of the summer. But this was all over now, as far as the little barn was concerned, for some treacherous spark, flying farther than its companions, had blown in at the wide-open door and lighted on the hay, where it had lain smouldering until it had gained strength and was ready to burst forth in the long tongue of flame that had met Ted's eye. Already the hay was blazing merrily and sending up a thin banner of smoke, which soon became a dense yellowish cloud that hid the sun and the sky. It was too far from any other building to cause any danger of its spreading, so the boys felt that the worst had come. But this was bad enough, for it had gone too far, when Ted discovered it, to make it possible to put the fire out. While two or three of them raced up to the house to give the alarm, the others stood by, with their boyish hearts sinking as they thought of the damage done by their careless fun, and waited anxiously for Dr. Walsh to come, hoping, yet fearing, to have him know of the accident. The barn was well hidden from the house by the trees, and at some little distance. Would he ever come?
"What do you s'pose he'll do to us?" asked Phil remorsefully.
"I don't know," said Rob anxiously. "Something bad, I'm afraid. I do hope he won't have us arrested or anything."
"How could we be such dummies as not to look out for all this hay!" said Ted. "Hark! What's that?"
"What's what?" asked Phil.
"That noise. It sounded as if some one was calling. Listen!" said Ted excitedly.