“No,” was the reply; “it’s too wet and slippery for any one to venture on to-night, and it’s too dark for us to see all over it. I’m afraid we’ll have to give it up.” They waited for sometime, nevertheless, visited at brief intervals by other watchers from below, but no renewal of the mysterious sounds disturbed them. In fact, the wind was dying away now, having lasted a good while for a summer gust, and when at last Brayton led the way down-stairs, Zeb went next, and Bar had a precious moment in which he was able to step back and once more slip the end of the tolling-rope over the arm of the van. “It won’t do any harm, right away,” he thought, “and there’s no telling when I may have another chance to get up here.” Once or twice, in the remaining course of that eventful night, faint efforts at a clangor moaned across the green through the still falling rain, but there was not enough of them to draw the villagers again from their houses. CHAPTER XXIII THE BELL MYSTERY REMAINS UNSOLVED To say that the usual amount of sleeping was done in Ogleport that night would be to trifle with truth but, for all that, everybody was astir bright and early the next morning. Why not, when there would be so remarkable an opportunity for everybody to ask everybody else: “What do you think about it?” Even Zeb Fuller’s name was less frequently on the lips of men than on the former occasion, for this was something apparently beyond him. And yet Zeb’s “chores” had been done at railway speed that morning, and there was that in his eyes which might have been very suggestive to a man that knew him well. Hardly had Bar and Val finished their breakfast before word was brought them by Mrs. Wood that the Fuller boy was asking for them. “And you’d better look out for him or he’ll get you into all sorts of difficulty.” Zebedee’s errand was a very peaceful and proper one, however, for he merely proposed to join them in their day on the lake, if they were going, and to show them some things he reckoned they had not yet seen. It is possible that George Brayton would have willingly kept Bar and Val within reach that day, but they were off with Zeb before he had a chance to offer any objection. Very quiet was Zeb, till the three were well out of the village, and then he turned suddenly upon Bar, with: “He’d ha’ found it out, after all, if it hadn’t been for me.” “Why,” said Bar, somewhat taken by surprise, “did you find it out?” “Can’t say I did,” said Zeb, as if ashamed of such a confession, “but I knew that rope along the timber and under that wheel had something to do with it. So I kept between him and that as much as I could.” [Illustration: “HE’D HA’ FOUND IT OUT, IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR ME”] “You’re a trump, Zeb,” shouted Bar. “I wondered myself how it was he failed to see that, dark as it was, when they had so many lanterns. But there they were, all of them looking up and couldn’t see it.”