Bart made out a long fuse trailing three feet or more over the side of the old fieldpiece. He blew the punk to a bright glow. "Ready!" he called back merrily over his shoulder. The hillside vibrated with the flutter of expectant juvenile humanity and a vast babel of half-suppressed excited voices. Bart applied the punk, there was a fizz, a sharp hiss, a writhing worm of quick flame, and then came a fearful report that split the air like the crack of doom. CHAPTER III COUNTING THE COST Bart had quickly moved to one side of the cannon after lighting the fuse, and was about twenty feet away when the explosion came. The alarming echoes, the shock, flare and smoke combined to give him a terrific sensation. The crowd that had retreated down the hill in delightful trepidation now came trooping back filled with a bolder excitement. They had indeed "waked the natives," for gazing downhill against the lights of the street and stores at its base they could see people rushing outdoors in palpable agitation. Some were staring up the hill in wonder and terror, others were starting for its summit, among them two village officials, as demonstrated by the silver stars they wore. "They heard it--it woke 'em up, right enough!" shrieked little Sawyer in a frenzy of happiness. "Look yonder!" piped a second breathless voice. "Say, I thought I heard something strike." Dale Wacker came upon the scene--not limping, but chuckling and winking to the cronies at his back. "Pretty good aim, eh, fellows?" he gloated. "Stirling, you're a capital gunner." All eyes were now turned in a new direction--in that whither the muzzle of the cannon was pointed. The grounds of the Harrington mansion were the scene of a vivid commotion. The porch lights had been abruptly turned on, and they flooded the lawn in front with radiance. Bart gasped, thrilled, and experienced a strange qualm of dismay. He discerned in a flash that something heretofore always prominently present on the Harrington landscape was not now in evidence. The wealthy colonel was given to "grandstand plays," and one of them had been the placing of a bronze pedestal and statue at the side of the driveway. It bore the inscription "1812," and according to the colonel, portrayed a military man life-size, epaulettes, sword, uniform and all--his maternal grandfather as he had appeared in the battle scene where he had lost a limb. Now, in effigy, the valiant warrior was prostrate. The colonel's servants were rushing to the spot where the statue had tumbled over on the velvety sward. "See here!"--cried Bart stormingly, turning on Dale Wacker. "Loaded," significantly observed the latter with a diabolical grin. A rush of keen realization made Bart shiver. He recognized what the foolhardy escapade might have cost had that whirling cannon ball met a human, instead of an inanimate, target.