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heroes were in a quandary. They had gotten on the trail of the mystery, and it diverged in two directions. Both paths seemed to lead to one or the other of two students—Bascome or Lenton. To accuse either, or to question them, would mean serious trouble, for it would be considered as an insult. Tom and his chums realized that.

"But what gets me, if either one of them did take our clock and chair, is what their motive could have been," spoke Tom. "Why in the mischief should they take our battered old ticker, leave another in its place, and then make the exchange again?"

"It's just as easy to answer as to say who has our chair," declared Phil. "It isn't in Bascome's room, that's certain."

"And Lenton hasn't it," asserted Tom. "I found that out, all right."

It was the morning after the sensational