February promised to go out like a thousand lions. Toward noon on the
twenty-fourth it began to snow, listlessly, at first, but more thickly
as nightfall approached. The next morning the townsfolk awoke to find
their homes half buried in a white, downy mass as thick as the height of
the fences.
It was a morning of fine sport. Old men and young turned out with a will
to clean the walks of the city. It was hard work for strong hands
manipulating broad wooden shovels, for so deep was the snow that after a
few feeble attempts Paddy, the plowman, was forced to give in and urge
his plunging horse back to the stable. His plow was useless.
The oldest resident experienced such pleasure as had not been his for
many years. He reveled in vague recollections of the winter of 1830 when
the snow--according to him--had fallen "a mite deeper," and the farmers,
living along the main highways, had been compelled to combine their
genius and their strength in digging tunnels to the market!
That day and the following were clear and crisp. Every one wore green
spectacles. Cases of snow-blindness were numerous; and then, toward
evening on the twenty-sixth, the mercury, which for thirty-six hours had
hovered near the zero-point, began slowly to rise. At midnight a weak,
half-hearted rain set in. The next noon, with that mischievousness in
which the elements of our zone not infrequently indulge, a strong
piercing wind, straight from the north, swept down the state. At seven
o'clock that night the common thermometers registered five degrees below
zero and a shimmering crust of ice an inch thick lay upon the land.
Across the fields and over the fences the farmers drove, in heavy
bob-sleds, into town. In the southwest corner of the state a new sect
was born whose leaders proclaimed the dawn of the Age of Ice and
beseeched the people to look to their souls, before the final
congealment of all things.
In town a season of gaiety ensued. Numbers of art students proceeded to
the open spots upon the campus, and, with hatchets, cut out of the crust
gigantic caricatures of well-known instructors. With the zeal and
yo-heave-ho of lumber-jacks they raised the figures upright supporting
them with props, and the campus became, as if by magic, adorned with
profile statues of professors!
General as was the interest in the unique entertainment a kind nature
had provided, there were certain sophomores who, shunning the spectacle
afforded by the decorated campus, sought the seclusion of a certain
back-room down-town where they evolved a plan of hazing that promised to
be entirely overlooked in the interest otherwise occasioned.
Thus far Kerwin had not been molested and had begun to think that at
least one banquet was to pass without a recurrence of those adventures
which for years had made it notable among the events of the college
year.
"There's too much else to interest them," he said to Norse, one morning
in the State Street Billiard Hall. "If they were up to any stunts we'd
have heard before this, with the banquet coming off day after to-morrow.
It's all easy sailing, thanks to the ice."
Norse, however, was not so certain. "You can't tell," he said, with a
significant wag of his head. "Maybe this keeping-still now means action
at the last minute. What do your own freshmen say?"
"There's not one in the frat. who thinks they'll attempt anything,"
Kerwin replied. "And as for the sophomores, they say there's too much
going on for them to waste time fooling with a dinky freshman
toastmaster."
Norse's doubts were not, however, to be so easily dispelled. "You'd
better keep an eye out," he advised. "I'll help you all I can. If I get
next to anything I'll let you know."
But neither that day nor the day after did he hear a word that sounded
in the least suspicious, but on Friday he did; and thus wise:
At noon he met Kerwin again in the billiard hall.
The toastmaster drew him to one side. "I'm fixed," he whispered with a
grin of satisfaction.
"How?" Norse asked.
"Got my dress suit hid."
"Where, in the furnace?"
"No; better'n that. You know that built-in closet in my room? Yes. Well,
the top of it is lower than it seems to be from the front, and I've put
my suit, and dress-shirt, and all, up there. Such a simple way of hiding
the stuff they'll never think of, if they get into the room while I'm
away."
"Anybody know about it?"
"Not a soul but you."
"Good. It does look as if they were going to let you alone, but you
can't be too careful the rest of the day. What are you going to do this
afternoon?"
Kerwin was going to do many things; he was going to be busier than a
puppy with a bone, he said.
"You see," he explained, "I want the affair to go off as smooth as oil;
and, by Jove, it's going to, if I've got anything to say about it. What
were you going to do?"
Norse had planned to go skating.
"Go on," Kerwin urged, then perceiving that his friend hesitated, he
added, slapping him sturdily on the back, "Don't you have any fear for
me. Go on. I wish I might go but I simply can't; and that's all there is
to it."
"If you think it's safe, all right," Norse said.
"Safe!" Kerwin exclaimed, flauntingly. "Of course its safe. Go on!"
So Norse went.
It was half-past five, and quite dark, when he clambered over the high
iron fence at the Michigan Central station, and started to climb the
slippery State Street hill. The chimes, ringing out from the library
tower in the crisp air, were clear and genuinely musical. For four hours
he had skated over the flats above the pulp-mill. He noted mentally,
now, that he would telephone Myrtle in the morning and have her come
over for the afternoon. Skating alone is all very well for exercise, but
not much in the way of pleasure, he considered. His skates, dangling
from a strap over his shoulder, clinked, musically, as he picked his way
with exceeding caution along the icy pavement. A moon was due in an hour
and the street-lamps were unlighted. When he reached the top of the hill
and saw ahead of him the street flooded with the golden glow of the
store illuminations, he suddenly recalled the box of flash-light powder
that he had, till now, forgotten. Myrtle had expressed a desire for a
picture of her room to send "back home," and he had promised to take
one. He would, he thought, secure a box at once and have done with it.
He recalled having read in one of Heenan's _U. of M. Daily_
advertisements that a full line of photographers' supplies was carried.
He noticed several cameras and plate-holders in the window as he entered
the store. It was the supper hour and the single salesman was busy with
a customer at the rear. She was examining the stock of tissue paper.
Innumerable rolls lay before her on the table. Taking advantage of her
indecision, the salesman served Norse, then returned to the girl who
couldn't quite make up her mind whether she desired her lamp-shade to be
pink or pale blue.
On a table in front of the fireplace, across the store, stood several
tall piles of a new and exceedingly popular magazine. Norse lingered a
moment to read the announcement poster. Thus engaged there fell upon
his ear the sound of voices. Unconsciously listening he made out a word
now and then of what seemed an earnest conversation carried on in
undertone. And then he heard mentioned a name that caused him to start
and cast a quick glance to the rear of the store where the salesman was
still busy with the girl who could not make up her mind. The speakers
whom he could not see were on the other side of the piles of magazines,
in front of the fireplace. Norse craned forward, eagerly. He heard a
throat cleared, and then these words, quite distinctly:
"At seven o'clock, eh? Ain't it funny he's not to be at his frat.
house?"
"No; not under the circumstances," was the indefinite reply. "He doesn't
suspect anything."
Norse grinned with sardonic delight.
"Don't you think it's a bloomin' long way to take him, Billy?"
"Oh, I don't know," was the reply. "It ain't over three miles."
Every muscle in Norse's body was tense, every nerve on edge.
"I know," he heard, "but it's so blasted cold. We don't want him to
freeze on our hands."
"He won't. Morton lugged an oil stove out there yesterday. We can get
some blankets at the livery."
Norse felt all hot, yet he shivered.
"Say."
He held his breath.
"What?"
He gripped the edge of the table.
"Do you think the place is really haunted?"
Could Norse, that instant, have given way to the rare delight that
overcame him, he would have flung his skates through the great
plate-glass window of the store in a very riot of joy. His eyes became
all alight. He drew away noiselessly.
As he slipped out of the store he was observed neither by the interested
clerk nor by the two stocky young men to whose conversation he had
listened with such rapt attention, and who, that instant, stepped from
behind the counter into the aisle. Before they reached the door he was
speeding up State Street, past Tut's, past the Congregational Church,
past the First Ward School, past Newberry Hall, thoughtless of the icy
pavement, and, apparently, of the fact that a slip might mean the
failure of the plan he outlined as he ran.