Free Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, Charles Geer

them scampering off through the woods to find Elmer Pridgin. Their job was to keep Elmer busy showing them how to skin rabbits, so he wouldn't be around taking pot shots at us while we were up at Memorial Point.
    "You'll have to keep him busy for two or three hours," Jeff told them, "so make like you're real dumb and can't understand how he skins these rabbits so fast."
    "Just act natural and you'll be all right!" Mortimer shouted after them as they disappeared into the edge of the woods.
    The rest of us stayed on the truck until Zeke brought it to another sputtering stop at the crest of a little knoll deep in the woods on the back side of Brake Hill. The dirt trail that Zeke had followed off of Turkey Run Road brought us a lot closer to Memorial Point than the Old South Road on the other side of the hill, and we had only about a hundred feet to climb up to where the cannon sat. But it took us two trips to lug all our equipment up there. This was when we were glad we had Zeke with us. He was strong as a bear. He could stand two railroad ties upright, throw a carrying-strap around them, and tote 'em for ten miles balanced on his back. If he didn't have a strap, he'd use the dirty white galluses he always wore over his woollen undershirt.
    On our second trip down to where the truck was parked, Homer came riding up on his bicycle and told us what was going on at the Town Hall. "I think Abner Sharples will talk the Council into having the cement plug chipped out of the cannon barrel," he said. "They seemed to be pretty interested in his story."
    "That's great!" said Henry. "Just what we want."
    "I doubt if they can get a crew up here before tomorrow," said Jeff, "but we'd better hurry, just the same. Give us a hand with the rest of this stuff, Homer."
    We struggled up the hill with all the parts to Zeke's overhead crane and assembled the stanchion at the mouth of the old cannon. Then we all took our hatchets and scoured the woods for good, hard ash that would make a hot fire and not too much smoke. Meanwhile, Zeke drilled a couple of diagonal holes in the end of the cement plug, and fashioned an iron clamp that would bite into the holes like a pair of ice tongs. He hooked one end of a set of block-and-tackle to the clamp and lashed the other end to a tree.
    Getting the cement plug out of the barrel was easy, since we were able to use Henry's brains. We built a big bonfire under the cannon, and Mortimer and Jeff heated up the muzzle end with blowtorches. Henry sat on a rock off to the side, making calculations on a pad of notepaper and keeping one eye on a battery of voltmeters he had set up on the ground beside him. The voltmeters were wired to thermocouples Henry had placed at various points along the huge barrel with asbestos tape. This way he could get a picture of the distribution of heat along with barrel and calculate how much it was expanding. From time to time he would give Jeff and Mortimer directions about where to aim the blowtorches.
    "I think we're ready," he said, finally. "Give her a slow, easy tug, Zeke!"
    Zeke coiled the free end of the rope around one hamlike wrist, dug his left heel into the earth, and gave a long grunt. You could see the muscles bulge through the back of his undershirt as he heaved on the rope. There was a creaking and grinding noise, and the plug started to inch slowly out of the cannon mouth.
    Everybody started to cheer and shout advice and encouragement to Zeke at the same time. He coiled more of the rope around his arm, set his feet again, and bent his back to the task once more. He chomped down on his cigar so hard that he bit clear through it, and the stub end fell on the grass beside him. But a good six inches of the plug was now showing out of the mouth of the cannon.
    "Put more wood on that fire," said Henry. "And keep those torches going. That barrel will cool fast, once the air gets in there."
    Homer and I piled more branches on and fanned up the blaze. Then we ran to the front of