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90 "It will be the worse for you!"

"I'll risk that."

"Stop him, somebody!" screamed Josiah Crabtree at the top of his voice.

Without waiting, Tom ran down the hallway. He knew not where he was going, and, coming to a door, slipped through. He now found himself in the rear of the Hall and a few seconds later ran across the back garden and dove into the farm lands.

"Free once more," he thought. "And I shan't go back until I am certain Captain Putnam is on hand to receive me. I wonder how Dick and Sam are faring?"

Thinking that his brothers would soon learn of his escape, and not wishing to be caught, he hurried on until the farm lands were passed and he found himself in a woods.

"I'll sweep around in a circle and make for that road leading to Cedarville," he concluded, and trudged on rapidly, for the woods were dark and lonely and not particularly to his liking.

Tom had covered the best part of half a mile when he saw a light ahead. At first he thought it must shine from the window of some farm-house, but soon made it out to be from a camp-fire, situated in something of a hollow and not far from a spring.

"Hullo!—tramps or charcoal burners," he