PRISONERS
In one of the wings of the school building there was located a room about
twelve feet square with one window which was barred, and this, as my old
readers know, was known officially as the school guardroom or prison.
Jack and Fred had once been prisoners in this guardroom on a charge that
was afterwards proved to be false.
"Gee! I wonder if he's going to take us to the guardroom?" whispered the
youngest of the Rovers.
"I don't see how he can crowd seven of us into that small room," answered
Randy. "Why, it's only got one cot in it!"
Professor Duke led the way through the corridor and up the broad stairs.
In the meanwhile Professor Grawson had ordered the other cadets to their
rooms, so there was no one at hand to witness what was taking place.
Arriving on the second floor, Snopper Duke led the way into another
corridor and then up a somewhat narrow stairway leading to the third
floor.
"Hello! I wonder where he's going to take us now?" questioned Fred in
wonder.
"This is certainly a new wrinkle," declared Gif.
The third floor was but dimly lit until the professor turned on more
light. Then he turned into a little side corridor at the end of which was
located a long, narrow room which, during the previous year, had been
used by some of the hired help but which was now unoccupied.
"You will remain in this room until I have a chance to communicate with
Colonel Colby," said Professor Duke, as he marched the cadets in. "And
remember! I want no cutting up here. I want you to remain perfectly
quiet."
"How long shall we have to stay here?" questioned Jack.
"That will depend on what Colonel Colby has to say about it," was the
sharp answer.
"Do you expect us to stay here all night?" demanded Randy.
"You will have to stay here unless Colonel Colby gets back from the city,
and I think that hardly likely to-night," answered the teacher. "Now
remember! No noise and no horseplay or I'll do something that you won't
forget in a hurry," and with this admonition he walked out of the room,
closing and locking the door after him.
"Listen!" cried Fred, as all of the others started to talk at once. And
going to the door, he listened intently, and so did the others, and they
heard Snopper Duke pass through the little corridor and down the stairs.
"He's gone, all right enough," remarked Phil Franklin.
"Well, what do you know about this, anyhow!" cried Gif.
"I think he's treating us like a lot of children," declared Andy
angrily.
"I don't believe he has any right to keep us out of our regular rooms,"
came from his brother.
"Well, anyway, he took the right," answered Jack grimly. "And what is
more, he seems to have the best of us."
"He won't have if we break down that door."
"I don't think you'll have an easy job of it breaking down that door,"
put in Spouter. "I happened to notice that there was not only a regular
lock on it, but also a top bolt. You'd have to smash the whole door to
get out. But it certainly is a despicable piece of business," Spouter
continued. "And at the first opportunity we have we'll have to lay the
whole case before Colonel Colby. I'm sure when he has verified our
report, and gone into the various merits of the case, he will make a
finding that will be in accordance with----"
"Gee! Spouter can spout even if he is a prisoner," burst out Randy.
"Better get up on a chair, Spouter, and make a regular speech about it,"
he continued, grinning.
"This is a new experience for me," remarked Phil, with a smile. "I never
thought I was going to be put in jail."
"You can hardly call it being put in jail, Phil," answered Jack. "In a
military academy it is quite common for a cadet, when he has broken the
rules and regulations, to be placed in the guardhouse, just the same as
he is placed in the guardhouse in the regular army."
"I thought maybe they'd make us do what they call police duty," said the
boy from Texas. "One fellow told me that while he was in the training
camp he overstepped the regulations and they made him peel potatoes until
he was sick and tired of seeing them."
"Well, they do that too," put in Fred. "You might have to do something
like that if we were at the annual encampment. But while the school
session is on all they do is to lock you up."
The boys found that the long narrow room contained two double beds and
two cots, as well as a couple of bureaus, several stools, and a table. At
one end was a small bathroom and a clothing closet. There were three
small windows in a row, all looking out on the snow-covered fields behind
the school.
"Well, we've got a place to sleep, anyhow," announced Jack. "Although
three of us will have to sleep in one of the beds."
"Not much in the way of covering," remarked Gif, who had been making an
investigation. "Just one thin blanket on each bed. And that radiator is
not letting out heat enough to warm a cat," he added, as he placed his
hand on the one small radiator of which the long bedroom boasted.
"Never mind, we can keep on our uniforms if we want to," declared Randy.
"And who knows but what Colonel Colby may come back at any minute, and
then I'm almost certain that he'll let us go back to our own rooms."
"He will unless old Duke cooks up some dreadful story against us," came
from his brother. "You can bet he'll make out as black a case against us
as he can."
"Yes. But I think Professor Grawson will have something to say too," said
Jack. "And he has always been a very fair-minded man."
"I don't see why Colonel Colby took on such a man as Snopper Duke,"
declared Spouter. "He's every bit as bad as Asa Lemm was."
"But you've got to hand it to him for being a very well educated man,"
said Jack. "And he certainly knows how to teach when he's in the humor
for it."
"I don't think a man who is as harsh-minded as he is ought to be a
teacher," was Gif's comment. "He can't get a cadet to do his best if he's
forever nagging at him. Now, if I was a teacher, I'd do my best to gain
my pupils' confidence."
There was a pause, and presently Andy began to chuckle.
"Say, he certainly did look funny when that big snowball hit him in the
stomach and nearly knocked him over," he cried.
"How could you see that when you were on your back?" questioned Fred.
"Oh, I managed to flop over and look down the stairs just in time. He was
some sight, believe me. It's a wonder he didn't go over backward to the
floor below. I don't know what saved him. He must have grabbed the
banisters just in time."
"You can't really blame him for being mad. I think maybe I'd be mad
myself," said Gif. "However, let's drop that. What are we going to do? Go
to bed?"
"I don't see that there is anything else to do," answered Jack.
"I've got to do something to keep warm," declared Andy, and suddenly
turned a somersault over one of the beds. Then he began to box with his
brother, and the two spun around from one end of the room to the other.
"Here! you stop that," warned Fred. "You know what Duke said. You keep on
and he'll put us down in the cellar or some other worse place."
After this the seven cadets became more quiet, and, sitting as close as
possible to the little radiator which gave forth only a mite of warmth,
they discussed the situation for half an hour longer.
"That's another one against Codfish," declared Randy. "I'm sure he's
guilty."
"Well, he had some reason for saying what he did," said Jack. "He had to
clear his own skirts after they found those two big snowballs in his
room."
"Just the same, Jack, you know well enough hardly any other fellow in the
school would have squealed," cried Randy. "Codfish always was a sneak,
and I guess he always will be, no matter what some of the other fellows
do for him."
"Say, look here! I thought you fellows told me that Captain Dale was in
charge of this school whenever Colonel Colby was absent," burst out Phil
suddenly.
"That's true," answered Jack. "He was in charge all the time the colonel
was in the regular army."
"Then why didn't Professor Duke put this up to the captain?"
"Because Captain Dale is away on a little vacation," announced Gif. "He
won't be back until some time next week."
"And where did Colonel Colby go?"
"They said he had gone to the city," answered Fred. "But I don't know
what they mean by that. They may mean Boston, or New York, or some
smaller place."
"The radiator is growing stone cold," declared Gif, who had his hands on
it.
"What'll you bet old Duke didn't turn the heat off?" broke in Andy
quickly. "It would be just like him to do it."
"I guess about the only thing we can do is to go to bed," announced
Jack.
"Well, you had better do it with your uniform on, then," said Spouter.
"Because I'm not going to bed with the windows closed, and it's going to
be beautifully cold by and by."
All of the cadets had been accustomed to sleeping with the windows of
their bedrooms open. But they had also been accustomed to plenty of bed
clothing, and knew they would probably suffer with the scant quantity of
quilts now provided.
However, they had to make the best of it, and in the end did little else
but take off their shoes and coats and then wrap themselves in the
blankets as best they could. Of course, there was some horseplay in which
even Phil Franklin indulged. But on the whole the cadets kept rather
quiet, for they did not want to make matters worse than they were.
"The last time Randy and I were home our dad laid down the law good and
plenty," announced Andy. "So we've got to do something towards toeing the
mark."
"I'm afraid Brassy Bangs and a lot of the other fellows will have the
laugh on us for this," remarked Fred, as he turned in.
"Oh, well, you can't have fun without paying the piper once in a while,"
was Jack's comment.
It grew colder during the night, and on rising to cut off some of the air
that was blowing over him, Fred noticed that it had begun to snow. The
fine hard particles were drifting into the room, and he called the
attention of some of the others to this.
"I don't care. Let it snow in if it wants to," grumbled Randy sleepily.
But some of the others demurred to this, and presently one of the windows
was closed entirely and the others left open only a few inches.
"Gee, talk about Greenland's icy mountains!" exclaimed Gif, on arising a
little after seven o'clock. "Some coldness, if you ask me!"
"You said it!" declared Jack, as he got up and walked across the floor to
where the radiator was located. "Cold as ice!" he announced.
"Did you leave it turned on?" questioned Randy quickly.
"I certainly did."
"Then old Duke must intend to freeze us out!" exclaimed Fred. "What do
you know about that!"
"I know it's a mean piece of business," answered Andy. "Gee! why, we
might all catch our death of cold."
Having washed themselves, the cadets lost no time in donning the clothing
they had taken off on retiring. Then they continued to walk around the
narrow room in order to keep their blood in circulation. It was now about
eight o'clock, and they wondered if they would get any breakfast.
"A hot cup of cocoa or coffee wouldn't go bad," remarked Spouter. "Not to
say anything about ham and eggs, hot muffins, or a few other things on
the side."
"Yum, yum! don't mention them," groaned Andy. "I feel hollow clean down
to my shoes. I didn't have any too much supper, and I was depending on
having a few crackers I had in my closet."
"And I left an apple on my bureau," declared Phil.
"And I had two doughnuts stored away to take to bed with me," came from
Fred.
The boys heard the cadets below assembling for roll call and the short
morning parade, and then heard them march into the mess room of the Hall
for breakfast.
"My! but I wish I was downstairs right now," declared Randy. "I wouldn't
do a thing to that breakfast table!"
"Maybe they'll bring our breakfast to us," suggested Jack.
"If they do you can bet there won't be any too much of it--if old Duke
has anything to do with it," returned Gif grimly.