"Ay, ay! Ay, ay!"
"Help! Burglars! Jb," both sounders said at once. The message was repeated, and then all was still. Evidently Joe Bailey had left the key and taken up his baseball bat.
It was quick work for Tom and Harry to arouse their fathers and tell them that there were burglars over at Baileys'. Hasty toilets were made, and the four sallied out, father and son from each house.
"Isn't it lucky we put up that burglar alarm!" Tom whispered to his father as they hastened across the avenue. "Now you see what a lot of use it is. We'll have those burglars just as sure as they're born. You and I can watch one side of the house, while Harry and his father watch the other, and there's no possible way for them to escape."
Tom was suddenly silenced by the ominous click of a revolver. They were in the Bailey grounds now, and Mr. Dailey had caught sight of two forms moving among the shrubbery.
"Stop there!" Mr. Dailey said, in a low but very determined voice, his cocked revolver pointing at the two forms. "Stop there! If you move you're a dead man!"
"It's all right, Dailey," came the reassuring answer. "I'm Barker, and this is Harry with me. We'll capture those burglars over at Baileys' if we're smart about it."
Mr. Barker also had a revolver in his hand, and Harry, like Tom, carried a baseball bat.
"Now I guess they see what use the burglar alarm is," Tom found a chance to whisper to Harry. "But say, we must be careful where we hit them. I don't think we ought really to kill one of them; better strike for their shoulders and arms."
In a minute more Tom and his father were stationed where they could watch the front and one side of the Bailey house, and Harry and his father commanded the rear and the other side. No one could possibly leave the house without being seen.