“And maybe it won't be all a mystery some day. Your folks may look you up. They may come here and find you. And they'll be mighty proud of you--you've grown so tall and good looking. Of course they will!” Sister listened to him and gave a little contented sigh. “And then they might want to take me away--and I'd fight, tooth and nail, if they tried it.” “What?” gasped Hiram. “Of course I would!” said the girl. “Do you suppose I'd give up Mother Atterson for a dozen families--or for clothes--and houses--or, or anything?” and she ran into the house leaving the young farmer in some amazement. “Ain't that the girl of it?” he muttered, at last. “Yet I bet she is in earnest about wanting to know about her folks.” And from that time Hiram thought more about Sister's problem himself than he had before. Once, when he went to Crawberry, he went to the charitable institution from which Mother Atterson had taken Sister. But the matron had heard nothing of the lawyer who had once come to talk over the child's affairs, and the path of inquiry seemed shut off right there by an impassable barrier. However, this is ahead of our story. On this particular night Hiram washed at the pump, and then followed Sister in to supper. Before they were half through Mr. Camp suddenly started from his chair and pointed through the window. Flames were rising behind the barn again! “Another stack burning!” exclaimed Hiram, and be shot out of the door, seizing a pail of water, hoping that he might put it out. But the stack was doomed. He knew it the moment he saw the extent of the blaze. He kept away from it, as he had before; yet he did not expect to pick up any trail of the incendiary near the stack. “Twice in the same place is too much!” declared the young farmer, glowing with wrath. “I'm going to have this mystery explained, or know the reason why.” He left Mr. Camp to watch the burning fodder, to see that sparks from the stack did no harm, and lighting his lantern he went along the line fence again. Yes! there were the footprints that he had expected to find. But the burning stack was even farther from the fence than the first one had been--and there were no marks of feet in the soft earth on Mrs. Atterson's side of the boundary. CHAPTER XXXIV. CLEANING UP A PROFIT Hiram crawled through the wires, and followed the plain foot-marks back to the Dickerson sheds. He lost them there, of course, but he knew by the size of the footprints that either Sam Dickerson or his oldest son had been over to the line fence. “And that shooting-star!” considered Hiram. “There was something peculiar about that. I wonder if there wasn't a shooting star, also, away back there at New Year's when our other stack of fodder was burned?” He loitered about the sheds for a few moments. It appeared as though all the Dickersons were indoors. Nobody interfered with him.