“Yes, indeed!” said one man. “Tom Robinson lost some chickens last week, and so did Billy Peters and the Widow Lilly.”
“Were any lambs stolen?” asked Andy.
“I heard that Landerson the butcher, had a lamb stolen a couple of weeks ago. He just bought it from a man over to Hoetown. What do you want to know for? Do you know anything about the thieves?”
“I think I do. I’ll go over and ask the butcher about the lamb.”
At the butcher shop the two cadets had quite a talk, the upshot of which was that the butcher said he would visit the camp on the following afternoon, bringing two farmers who had lost chickens with him. He let the boys have some fresh meat on trust, and smiled broadly when they asked him not to tell anybody where their camp was located.
“I know something about the trouble up to the school,” he said. “One of them teachers—I think his name is Crabapple, or something like that—wanted my cousin, Jim Pepperhill, to go up there to keep order. But Jim didn’t like the looks of the teacher and wouldn’t go.”
“Did Mr. Crabtree say what the trouble was?” asked Pepper.
“Said some of the boys wouldn’t behave themselves, and that they had to be locked in their bedrooms and kept there.”
From the butcher shop the two cadets visited the post-office, to see if there was any mail for themselves and their fellow students. To their surprise they were told that another cadet had called there only half an hour before and taken all the cadets’ mail away.
“Who was it?” asked Andy, and the clerk described the person.