For when Riley and Ben Berry saw this flight of pigeons begin on Monday morning, they remembered that the geography lesson was a hard one, and so they played "hooky," and, taking their guns with them, hid in the bushes at the top of the hill. Then, as the birds struck the hill, and beat their way up over the brow of it, the boys, lying in ambush, had only to fire into the flock without taking aim, and the birds would drop all around them. The discharge of the guns made Bob Holliday so hungry for pigeon pot-pie, that he, too, ran away from school, at recess, and took his place among the pigeon-slayers in the paw-paw patch on the hill top. Tuesday morning, Mr. Ball came in with darkened brows, and three extra switches. Riley, Berry, and Holliday were called up as soon as school began. They had pigeon pot-pie for dinner, but they also had sore backs for three days, and Bob laughingly said that he knew just how a pigeon felt when it was basted. The day after the whipping and the pigeon pot-pie, when the sun shone warm at noon, the fire was allowed to go down in the stove. All were at play in the sunshine, excepting Columbus Risdale, who sat solitary, like a disconsolate screech-owl, in one corner of the room. Riley and Ben Berry, still smarting from yesterday, entered, and without observing Lummy's presence, proceeded to put some gunpowder in the stove, taking pains to surround it with cool ashes, so that it should not explode until the stirring of the fire, as the chill of the afternoon should come on. When they had finished this dangerous transaction, they discovered the presence of Columbus in his corner, looking at them with large-eyed wonder and alarm. "If you ever tell a living soul about that, we'll kill you," said Ben Berry. Riley also threatened the scared little rabbit, and both felt safe from detection. An hour after school had resumed its session. Columbus, who had sat shivering with terror all the time, wrote on his slate: "Will Riley and Ben B. put something in the stove. Said they would kill me if I told on them." This he passed to Jack, who sat next to him. Jack rubbed it out as soon as he had read it, and wrote: "Don't tell anybody." Jack could not guess what they had put in. It might be coffee-nuts, which would explode harmlessly; it might be something that would give a bad smell in burning, such as chicken-feathers. If he had thought that it was gunpowder, he would have plucked up courage enough to give the master some warning, though he might have got only a whipping for his pains. While Jack was debating what he should do, the master called the Fourth-Reader class. At the close of the lesson he noticed that Columbus was shivering, though indeed it was more from terror than from cold. "Go to the stove and stir up the fire, and get warm," he said, sternly. "I'd--I'd rather not," said Lum, shaking with fright at the idea.