Fiercer and higher rose the strength of that reckless wind from the west, and louder and more prolonged, though terribly irregular were the clamorous peals from the Academy belfry, till not a sleeper remained in all Ogleport, except the stone-deaf grandmother of Zeb Fuller’s friend, William Jones. The worst puzzled pair of ears in all the village, however, were those of Zebedee himself. Not only on account of the bell, but because Deacon Fuller had deemed that tolling a direct summons to the bedroom of his son, and it had required all his fatherly faith in Zeb’s truthfulness to convince him that the mischief, whatever it might be, would never be traced across his own threshold. That was very bad--so bad that Zeb enjoyed the rare luxury of looking upon himself in the character of injured innocence, but the very worst of it was that here was something going on in his own Ogleport of which he knew no more than did “old Sol” himself. “This must be looked to, father!” he solemnly declared. “It can hardly be the dun heifer can so soon again have forgotten herself. There’s been nothing going on that I know of, that the old bell need wake up and toll about at this time o’ night. We’d better go and make an investigation.” There were plenty more of the same way of thinking, and now they were gathering at the Academy door, some with umbrellas and some without, and not a few of them had brought along their lanterns. And now the door was opened by the Rev. Dr. Dryer in person, as on the previous occasion, and the whole crowd, variously half-clad, were glad enough to get in out of the rain. There was the mystery, however, right before them. No rope, no cow, and the old bell banging ceaselessly away, up there in the steeple. “She’s working tip-top,” whispered a cautious voice in Bar Vernon’s ear. “You said as how the fun’d come the first windy night, and I footed it over arter my sheer. It’s most as good as boat-buildin’.” “All right, Puff; only keep still,” returned Bar. “Let’s see what they’ll do about it.” There were other volunteers to go up with George Brayton that night, however, and although Zebedee Fuller crept along behind one of the trustees, he did not seem disposed to make himself at all conspicuous. He had noted the presence of Bar and Val, but had promptly dismissed them from his calculations with the silent question: “What do city fellows know about bells?” Not much, perhaps, but the dripping investigators soon began to suspect that they themselves knew even less, for they failed to detect any sign of rope on the second floor. “Now, my friends!” exclaimed the principal, triumphantly, “whoever the perpetrators may be, we are reasonably assured of their capture. They have lingered too long in the steeple!” “Looks like it,” muttered Zeb; “nobody ever engineered a dun heifer up those crooked stairs. It was a tough enough job to get her into the lower hall.”