"You are a smoker," said Hiram; "and it might be that you dropped a match when you were stacking this wheat. It's been done more than once."
"What do you mean?" cried Battick, "That it has taken all this time for a match to ignite? Do you mean by spontaneous combustion?" he scoffed.
"Not at all. I mean that it may have been ignited by the sharp little teeth of a field mouse. Such things have happened."
"That's right!" exclaimed Orrin. "I believe a fodder stack where I worked once was burned in that way."
"Mice and rats have been my bane since I came to this old Pringle place to live," admitted Yancey Battick slowly. "But I think your idea is far-fetched, Mr. Strong."
"At least, it is as good an idea as that Adam Banks set the stack off. We ought to find proof before we accuse the fellow."
"I don't mean to accuse him. What good would that do?" demanded Battick in disgust. "The harm is done. I've lost my wheat—"
"But you have all that in the house for fall seed," Hiram said.
"Yes," growled Battick. "And I mean to guard that with my gun. I mean to warn everybody that I'll put something besides rock-salt in my shotgun after this."
"Whew!" ejaculated Orrin Post, "you sound very savage."