There, in the middle of the main hall, from which on either side the schoolrooms opened, a few paces only from the front doorway, stood Dr. Dryer’s favorite dun heifer, with the bell-rope firmly webbed around her horns and a peck-measure of green apples on the floor within what would have been easy reach but for the hindrance of that rope. Small blame to the heifer if she smelled those apples and strove to reach them, and even less to the rope and the bell if among them they waked up all Ogleport as a consequence. Loud and long laughed the hitherto indignant representatives of the Board of Trustees. Clear and ringing was the laugh of George Brayton. Only less decided was that of Val Manning, but Bar Vernon was as mute as Dr. Dryer himself, and did but move around and look and search and study, for he had unconsciously undertaken the problem which was shortly to baffle entirely the mental acumen of his elders. “How did that heifer get into the Academy?” There was not a dissenting voice, when some one suggested: “Zebedee Fuller!” But Dr. Dryer had already ascertained that the evil genius of Ogleport had been at home and in bed, and, granting as an axiom his agency in the matter, the question clouded down upon them with a yet more Egyptian darkness. [Illustration: “HOW DID ZEB FULLER GET THAT HEIFER INTO THE ACADEMY?”] “How did Zeb Fuller get that heifer into the Academy?” The doctor had released his tantalized property quickly enough, and there were boys at hand to volunteer her escort to her own “lot,” but he himself remained to grapple with the mystery. “Only one safety just now,” remarked Brayton. “We must take away the rope altogether till school begins. I’ll go up and do it at once.” “And I’ll go with you,” said Bar. Val’s services were also offered, but Dr. Dryer remarked that “two would be as large a number as the occasion demanded,” and Val was compelled to remain below. The steeple was not a very lofty affair, but there was some climbing to be done, nevertheless, and both Bar and Brayton paused for breath on a sort of “deck,” twenty feet at least above the ridge of the main building, and as many more below the bell. “What’s this wheel for?” asked Bar, as he closely scrutinized a bit of machinery firmly set on the deck. “It seems not to be used.” “Looks like an old tolling gear,” said Brayton. “There’s another pulley-wheel to match it, up there by the bell, I fancy. They’ve changed the gearing now, and don’t use this any more. That’s a pokerish sort of place to climb into by moonlight, and those cleats are frail things to step on.” “I’m lighter than you are,” said Bar, and, without another word, up he went. “That’s no ordinary boy,” said Brayton to himself, and in another minute or so the rope, disengaged from the bell-gearing, came rattling down upon the deck beside him, and could be slipped through to the lower floors and removed beyond the reach of mysterious heifers and evil-disposed boys.