"I can't see any blood, Jack dear; but you seem to be literally covered with something yellow."
The boy passed his hand over his face, scraping off the supposed sanguinary fluid, and examined it carefully by aid of the light.
Then he leaped to his feet very quickly, looking both ashamed and angry.
"It's some kind of a trick Bill Dean's gang have been playing!" he cried, and at that instant from behind the barn came a shout of derision, followed by hearty laughter.
"Oh, I wish I was strong enough to flog those wicked wretches!" Aunt Nancy said, her eyes filling with tears of vexation.
Jack made no reply.
He had taken the lantern from her hand, and was searching carefully in the immediate vicinity.
It was not long before he and Aunt Nancy decided that the yellow substance was the seeds and pulp of a pumpkin, and Jack said, as he picked up several pieces of red paper,—
"Now I know what it means. Those fellers have dug the inside out of a pumpkin, and put into it a big firecracker. They waited until I came near the shed before lighting it, an', of course, when the thing exploded it sent the stuff flyin'."
"Thank goodness it was no worse!" the little woman added, and Jack burst into a hearty laugh.