A STRANGE HAPPENING
"Bob, this is worse than the Banbury crowd could devise," remarked Frank.
"Yes. The only thing is that in this case it's friends who are responsible
for it. Ugh! I'm sunk to the knees in water."
"I'm in to the waist," said Frank. "They've gone--the vandals! Off with the
blindfolds. Well, this is a pretty fix!"
Two minutes previous a sepulchral voice had spoken the awful words:
"Slide them into the endless pit!"
Then, with a gay college song, the mob that had led Frank and Bob on a
hazing trip, that had been positively hair-raising in its incidents, had
seemed to retire from the spot. Their laughter and songs now faded far away
in the distance.
"Well," uttered Bob, getting his eyes clear and his arms free, "we've had
an experience."
"I should say so," echoed Frank. "That old ice chute they dropped us into
must have been a hundred feet long."
"The hogshead they rolled us downhill in went double that distance,"
declared Bob.
"Well, let's get out of this," advised Frank.
That was more easily said than done. Comparative strangers as yet to the
country surrounding Bellwood, even when they had got on solid ground out
of the muck and mire of the boggy waste, they knew not which way to turn.
It was dark as Erebus and the wind was blowing a gale. Nowhere on the
landscape could they discover a guiding light. They were in a scrubby
little patch of woods, and they were confused even as to the points of
the compass.
"I think this is the direction of the academy," said Frank, striking out on
a venture.
"Yes; and we want to get there soon, too," replied Bob, "for we're going to
have a great storm in a few minutes."
As Bob spoke the big drops began to splash down. As the lads emerged upon a
flat field, the drops seemed to form into streams, and they breasted the
tempest breathless, blown about, and drenched to the skin.
"We've got to get shelter somewhere," declared Bob. "Let's put back for the
timber."
"I think I see some kind of a building ahead," observed Frank. "Yes, it's a
hut or a barn. Hustle, now, and we'll find cover till the worst of this is
over."
In a few minutes they came to an old cabin standing near some dead trees.
It was small and square and had one door and one window. Bob banged at the
door with a billet of wood he found, but could not budge it. The windows
had stout bars crisscrossing it.
"Give it up," he said at last. "No one living here, and padlocked as if it
was a bank. Hey, Frank, here's a chance."
In veering to the partial shelter of the lee side of the old structure, Bob
had noticed a sashless aperture answering for a window in the low attic of
the cabin. He got a hold with fingers and toes in the chinks between the
logs, and steadily climbed up.
"Come on," he called. "It's high and dry under the roof," and his companion
joined him, both half reclining across a loose board floor.
"Hear that," said Bob, as the rain seemed to strike the roof in bucket-like
volume. "I hope the crowd who got us in this fix are ten miles from any
shelter."
The rain kept on without the slightest cessation. In fact, it seemed to
increase every minute in volume. Fully half an hour passed by. Neither lad
thought of leaving shelter, and Bob had stretched himself out. The
conversation languished. Then Frank, catching himself nodding, sat up and
looked out of the window, noticing that his rugged, healthy comrade was
breathing heavily in profound slumber.
"There's a light coming this way," spoke Frank to himself, as he peered
from the window. "If it's a wagon, I'll hustle down and see if there's any
chance of a lift in the direction of the school. Hello, it's two men!
Hello again--they're coming right here to this hut. There, I can hear them
at the front door."
Frank was convinced a minute later that the newcomers lived in the cabin,
or at least had secured the right to occupy the place. He could hear them
at the padlock, and then their lantern illumined the room below. Gazing
through a crack in the floor, Frank could make out all they did and was
able to overhear their conversation.
They were two rough-looking, trampish fellows. Each threw a bundle on the
floor. The room had some old boxes in it and a pile of hay in one corner.
The men seated themselves on boxes and let the water drip from their soaked
clothing.
"That was a pretty husky tramp," spoke one of them.
"I see the governor isn't here yet."
"No; so it's up to us to get as comfortable as we can."
They threw off their coats, and one of them undid a bundle. He took from it
some bread, cheese, and a big black bottle, and the twain were soon
enjoying themselves. When they had finished eating they lay down in the
straw, smoking short, stubby pipes and chatting with one another.
"Now, then, look a-here, Jem," one of them remarked, "you wouldn't see me
tramping around in this kind of weather if it wasn't that there was a
chance to get something out of it."
"Don't I tell you what's at the end of it, Dan?" retorted the other. "Don't
I say as how the governor pays the expenses right royal while we're here?
And then don't you know as how he's agreed to turn over the other half of
that card, when we helps him get his plans through about this young kid up
at the academy?"
"Say, that was a funny thing about that card," observed the man called Dan.
"No, 'twasn't," dissented Jem. "We got our hands on a fine piece of goods.
We had to hide it till there was no danger of its being looked for. The gov
and me therefore goes to a friend and we puts it in his strong safe. He is
told that we has a card torn up with writing on it, atween us. The
arrangement is made that he doesn't let go the property till we both
presents them there pieces of card together. So you see, the gov can't get
the property and run off with it. No more can I. Now, then, the gov says I
can have the property entire if we help him on his present business here."
"Say," spoke up the interested Dan, "is the property pretty fine?"
"I'd call it good for a thousand dollars."
"Where did you fellows get it, Jem?"
"At a town called Tipton."
"Ah!" aspirated the listening Frank in a great gasp.
"And what was it, Jem?"
"A bracelet--a diamond bracelet," replied the man Jem.
Frank held his breath. He was greatly excited and startled. It seemed a
strange thing to him that here, in a lonely loft hundreds of miles from
home, by pure accident he should run across a clue to the person who had
stolen Samuel Mace's diamond bracelet, the mysterious theft of which had so
darkened our hero's young life.