A DESPERATE UNDERTAKING.
Leaving Mack and his companions to wonder at Blake’s skill and cunning,
and to rejoice over the unexpected return of their dinner, let us go
back to Lester Brigham, whom we left locked in his dormitory in company
with his friend, Wallace Ross.
If the reader will recall the conversation that took place at Cony
Ryan’s that afternoon, he can readily imagine that Lester was in just
the right mood to do something desperate. Cony had intimated very
plainly that he was a boy of one idea, and had also given it as his
opinion that, although Lester was the acknowledged leader of his set (we
know he wasn’t; he was only the tool), he was totally unfit for the
position. This made Lester so angry that he declared he would not eat
any more pancakes in Cony’s house. He would do something to prove that
he was not a boy of one idea, and it would be something that would not
put a red cent into Cony’s pocket. He would teach that enterprising
landlord that it wasn’t policy to rail at a good customer because he did
not run the guard every night; but what should he do? That was the
question. His companions expected him to get up something that would
afford them plenty of fun and excitement, but they might as well have
told him to plan an expedition to the North Pole, for Lester’s mind was
utterly barren of ideas. Just in the nick of time, however, his
room-mate came to his assistance, and Lester’s reputation was saved.
“I don’t know what you will think of my plan,” said Ross, after he had
closed and locked the door, “but I am of the opinion that I have got
hold of something that will create a bigger uproar than your runaway
expedition did. You know that the boys in the first class are talking of
having a dinner on the 31st. They have invited a good many guests, and
intend to make it a grand affair; but I should like to see the whole
thing knocked into a cocked hat. I propose that we get a party of good
fellows together, and go up to the city and eat the dinner ourselves.”
“Humph!” exclaimed Lester, who was greatly disappointed. “Is that all
you have to offer? I thought from the way you acted when I came in that
you had some grand idea in your head.”
“Don’t you call that a grand idea?” demanded Ross.
“No, I don’t,” snapped Lester, who was inclined to be angry as well as
disappointed. “I think it would be a very tame undertaking. The boys
would hoot at me if I should suggest it.”
“Tame!” echoed Ross. “Look here, Lester; you don’t understand the matter
at all. It would be a much more dangerous exploit than running off with
a private yacht, for if the boys in the first class should find out that
you thought of interfering with them in any way, they would give you
such a thrashing that you wouldn’t get over it in a month. You must know
that there are a lot of prominent men invited to this dinner, and if
anything should happen, just think how deeply mortified Mack and all the
rest of them would be!”
Lester began to prick up his ears now, and to listen with some interest
while Ross went on to repeat the conversation he had overheard in the
hall, when the committee of arrangements were warming their fingers at
the stove, and to unfold the details of the scheme he had matured while
awaiting Lester’s return from Cony Ryan’s. The longer Lester listened,
the less inclined did he become to take part in it. His room-mate’s idea
could not be carried out, he was quite sure of that, because there were
too many difficulties and altogether too much danger in the way; still
he could propose it to Enoch, and when the latter refused to have
anything to do with it, as of course he would the minute the matter was
fully explained to him, Lester could say that he had kept his
promise—that he had suggested something that would have afforded him and
his friends any amount of fun and excitement, but that Enoch lacked the
courage to take part in it.
“I wouldn’t take part in it myself for a hundred dollars of any man’s
money,” said Lester, mentally, “and I don’t believe Ross would be fool
enough to do it, either. Good gracious! What would the fellows in the
first class do to us? What would the teachers do? But I’ll propose it,
just as Don Gordon once proposed to capture the butcher’s big bull-dog,
take him up to the top floor of the building and kick him down stairs,
after tying a tin can to his tail. Don knew very well that there wasn’t
a boy in the world who would dare take a hand in a proceeding like that,
and he suggested it, just because he wanted to make Tom Fisher and
Duncan believe that he was a very brave fellow.” Then aloud he added:
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Wallace. If you will keep still and say
nothing to nobody, I’ll speak to Enoch about this idea of yours and tell
you what he thinks.”
Ross looked disappointed; he did not at all approve of this arrangement.
If Enoch thought well of his scheme, he wanted him to know who was the
originator of it. Lester had no difficulty in reading the thoughts that
were passing through his room-mate’s mind, and he hastened to add:
“You see, Ross, that runaway expedition last term made our crowd famous,
and there are a good many fellows hanging around us this year, hoping
that if we get up another of the same sort, they will be invited to join
us; but there are some among them whom we know we can’t trust, and we
have about decided that we won’t take anybody into our confidence.”
“But you know you can trust me!” exclaimed Ross, with some indignation
in his tones.
“Yes, I think we can; but the others may not think so, and the best
thing you can do is to keep entirely in the background, and let me
manage the matter in my own way. If you won’t agree to it, you can go
and see Enoch yourself. And if you do that,” added Lester, mentally,
“I’ll knock the whole arrangement higher than the moon. I’ll tell
Colonel Mack of it the very first chance I get.”
“But if Enoch thinks that my idea can be carried out I want to know it,
so that I can have a hand in it myself,” exclaimed Ross.
“Of course. I’ll attend to that.”
“Then I will agree to your proposition.”
“All right. When I tell you there are some boys who are now recognized
as members of our crowd, but whom we do not intend to take with us on
any more picnics, you will see the necessity for keeping the matter a
profound secret. Don’t lisp a word to anybody, for, if you do, you may
speak to the wrong fellow. I’ll talk the scheme up the best I know how,
and tell you what conclusion we come to.”
So saying, Lester left the room and hastened away in search of Enoch,
whom he found in the hall in company with his inseparable friend, Jones.
They saw and understood the wink that Lester gave them as he passed, and
followed him out of the building to an unfrequented part of the grounds,
where they could talk without fear of being overheard. Then Lester went
into the details of his room-mate’s plan, never once mentioning Ross’s
name, however, but leaving his auditors to infer that the idea was
original with himself. He wanted them to say at the outset that they
would not have anything to do with it, and he succeeded in making the
difficulties and dangers of the undertaking stand out so prominently
that he did not believe that any boy who was in his sober senses would
willingly face them. Judge, then, how surprised he was when he saw the
look of interest and enthusiasm which his glowing words called to
Enoch’s face, and felt the hearty embrace the boy gave him as he
exclaimed, in delighted tones:
“Lester, you are a brick! I knew you would hit upon something grand if
you were only given time to set your wits at work. This beats last year
all to smash; don’t it, Jones?”
“I should say so,” replied the latter, as soon as he had somewhat
recovered from his amazement. The whole scheme was so original and
daring in its conception that he could not take it in all at once.
“Lester could not suggest anything that would please me better if he
were to think and plan for a month. If we can only carry it out—”
“Oh, we’ll carry it out,” interrupted Enoch, nodding his head in a
significant way, as if he meant to convey the impression that he had
suddenly conceived of a brilliant idea of his own. “Don’t you worry
about that.”
Lester was so disgusted that he could only give a sickly smile in return
for the beaming looks his companions bestowed upon him. The latter
entered heartily into the spirit of the matter, and Lester, if he had
dared, would have gone straight to Colonel Mack and exposed the whole
thing. He was afraid to take part in it, and he was so mean that he did
not want others to see any fun unless he could have the lion’s share of
it. His companions already showed a disposition to ignore him entirely,
and discussed with each other several plans for accomplishing their ends
without once asking Lester to express his opinion regarding them.
“Won’t Cony be surprised when he hears of it!” exclaimed Enoch, who was
highly excited over the sport in prospect.
“I only wish it would take some money out of his pocket,” snarled
Lester, in reply.
“Why do you wish that?” demanded Enoch.
“Because I don’t at all like the way he jawed me to-day,” answered
Lester.
“Oh, he didn’t jaw you. He only wanted to wake you up, and I am glad to
say that he succeeded in doing it. You never would have thought of this
if Cony had not given you that friendly overhauling this afternoon. I
wish that dinner was coming off this very night.”
“Perhaps the other boys will not be in favor of it,” Lester ventured to
remark, and he hoped from the bottom of his heart that they would not.
“Yes, they will,” said Enoch, confidently. “Mack and Gordon have made
themselves obnoxious to a large party of fellows by the extraordinary
airs they have thrown on since they received their last promotion, and
they will do anything to get even with either of them. Now, we have no
time to waste. We must find out just what their plans are, and then we
shall know how to go to work to defeat them. I believe they hold their
regular business meeting to-night; and, Lester, you and Jones had better
hide in the room and see if you can’t hear something that will be of use
to us.”
The coolness with which Enoch desired others to put themselves in danger
of a good beating while he kept out of the way of it, was refreshing.
The promise of the lieutenant-colonel’s shoulder-straps at the end of
the term would not have induced Lester Brigham to go into that
recitation room as a spy, and take his chances of detection, and he did
not hesitate to say so in the plainest language he could command.
“But somebody must go,” insisted Enoch.
“Then go yourself!” exclaimed Lester. “I had brains enough to get up the
scheme, and now I’d like to see if you have enough to carry out the
details.”
“All right; I’ll go,” said Enoch, promptly; and thus another of Lester’s
hopes was dashed to the ground. If all the boys in the crowd were as
courageous as Enoch, and as willing to brave the wrath of the boys in
the first class, it was plain that if they did not accomplish their
object, it would not be because they were afraid to try.
“There’s just this much about it,” thought Lester; “I won’t go, nor will
I have the first thing to do with it. Since Enoch and Jones take so much
interest in the scheme, they can work it out to suit themselves and bear
the brunt of the punishment when it comes, and I will stay in the
background. If I see that they are going to succeed, I will make it my
business to break some of the rules so that I will be refused a pass.”
If Lester had tried to carry this resolution into effect he would have
found himself in trouble directly. The astute Enoch, who knew just how
far to trust him, put the right interpretation upon the expression he
saw on his face, and laid his plans accordingly.
“Well, Jones,” said he, cheerfully, “you and I will act as spies
to-night, and see if we can learn anything. In the meantime we’ll not
say a word to any of the boys. We’ll wait until we have something
definite to tell them.”
Just then the supper call was sounded, and as the three conspirators
hastened to obey it, Enoch found opportunity to whisper to his friend
Jones:
“Keep your weather-eye on Brigham. I don’t like the way he looked. He
means to back out, and, failing in that, to betray us.”
“No!” exclaimed Jones, who was profoundly astonished.
“I am sure of it.”
“Then what in the name of sense did he propose it for?” was the
indignant inquiry.
“For fun—just because he wanted to show us that he could think up
something in five minutes if he set about it in dead earnest. If he had
had the least idea that we would so readily fall in with his scheme, he
would not have said a word about it.”
“He wanted to hear himself talk, did he? If I really believed it, I
would report him.”
“Don’t do that,” said Enoch, in some alarm, “for if you do you will
spoil everything. We don’t care whether he was in earnest or not. He has
told us how we can see some fun, and if we are sharp we will go ahead
with it. What we want to guard against is, that he don’t slip out, and
leave us to stand the court-martial alone.”
“Fall in for supper!” shouted the quartermaster sergeant; and the order
put a stop to the conversation.
Enoch and Jones could not remember that they had ever been more excited
than they were that night. As self-constituted spies they were about to
undertake something that no boy in that school had ever before had the
hardihood to attempt. They knew the temper of the students in the first
class, and they knew, too, that they all belonged to a secret society
that was as old as the academy itself. Its members were scattered all
over the country. Its signs, grips, and pass-words, and all the other
mysterious things belonging to it, had always been so closely guarded,
that no one except a first-class boy had ever been able to obtain the
faintest clue to them. A few inquisitive fellows had been bold enough to
try it, but they were sorry for it afterward. They never did find out
what passed inside the doors of the lodge-room, not even after they
became members of the first class; and besides being forever debarred
from all the rights and privileges they would otherwise have enjoyed,
they were soused in the big pond until all the curiosity and a good deal
of their breath was washed out of them. Enoch and Jones knew all this,
and yet they were about to go a step farther. They were going to allow
themselves to be locked in one of the recitation rooms with all the boys
in the first class, and Jones, after he had taken time to consider the
situation, began to feel as if he were on the point of entering a den of
lions. Of course, he knew that none of the ceremonies of the lodge-room
would be enacted at a business meeting, but still it was possible that
some of the students, believing themselves to be alone, might let fall
some words or phrases that outsiders were not entitled to hear. He
talked these matters over with Enoch after supper, and would have been
delighted to see some signs of wavering or hesitancy on the part of his
companion. But Enoch’s eye lighted up and his face flushed, as the
perils of the undertaking were portrayed to him, and the longer Jones
talked, the brighter grew the light and the deeper the flush.
“I don’t want to be black-balled when I get into the first class,” said
Jones, as a clincher. “Why, just think of it, Enoch! Some of the best
officers in our army and navy belong to that society, and if I should
happen to meet any of them after I leave school, I should like to
associate with them on equal terms.”
“I don’t want to be black-balled either,” returned Enoch, “and, what’s
more, I don’t intend to be. You need have no fears on that score,
because we are not going to allow ourselves to be caught in the
recitation room. I tell you, Jones,” exclaimed Enoch, growing
enthusiastic, “it will be the biggest thing that was ever thought of,
and we must go through with it. The tuckout will be well worth
eating—Mack and his crowd don’t do things by halves—and if we succeed in
stealing it, they will know in a minute that some of their secrets have
leaked out; but won’t it puzzle them to locate that leak?”
“Not if they find us hidden under the benches in the room in which they
are holding their meeting,” replied Jones.
But Enoch declared over and over again that they were not going to be
caught, and spoke so confidently, and drew so glowing a picture of the
rage and mortification that would be displayed by the first-class boys
when they discovered how they had been duped, that he succeeded in
infusing a little of his own courage into his timid companion.
When the time for action arrived, Enoch, who ought to have been studying
his lessons for the next day, came softly out of his dormitory and was
promptly halted by Charley Porter, the guard who had charge of that
floor until midnight. We have seen Charley before, and know that he was
a boy after Enoch’s own heart.
“Where are you going?” he asked, in a cautious tone, after he had looked
up and down the hall to made sure that he and the spy were the only
occupants of it. He knew at once that there was something afoot. He
judged from Enoch’s stealthy movements that guard-running was about to
be inaugurated again, and wondered how any boy could have the temerity
to attempt it. “You can’t get out,” he added, a moment later, “and if
you make the effort, you will only get yourself and me into trouble. I
am afraid to let you pass.”
“It will be for only half an hour,” was Enoch’s whispered response. “I
assure you that I don’t intend to go out of the building.”
“What’s going on?” demanded the guard.
“Something that will astonish you when you hear the full particulars of
it,” answered Enoch. “You know about that dinner, of course? Well, some
of our old crowd have made up their minds that Mack and his friends
shan’t eat it—that we will eat it ourselves.”
Charley smiled, and looked incredulous.
“It’s a fact,” said Enoch, earnestly. “Lester Brigham got up the scheme,
and I think it a splendid one.”
“It would be, if it could be carried out,” replied the guard.
“It can be,” said Enoch, in a confident tone. “In the first place we
must learn all about their plans, and then we shall know just what to
do.”
“But how are you going to learn about their plans?”
“You know that the fellows in the first class hold their regular meeting
to-night, I suppose? Well, Jones and I are going to hide in the room and
listen to what that committee, who have been to the city to-day, have to
say about the matter.”
Charley Porter was really astonished now. He looked at Enoch as if he
could hardly believe that he had heard aright, but he did not speak.
“I want to go down to the room now,” continued the spy, “and as soon as
the meeting is over I will come back—the very minute. I’ll take care to
see that you don’t get into any trouble on my account.”
The guard walked carelessly to the head of the stairs, took a survey of
the hall below, and came back to Enoch before he spoke.
“_I_ wouldn’t do it for a million dollars,” said he. “Don’t you know
that you will surely be left out in the cold when you get into the first
class if you are caught in that room? I have heard it said that the
school is made so very unpleasant for black-balled boys that they can’t
stay in it. They are glad to get out and go home as soon as they can.”
“I know all about it,” replied Enoch. “But if I am willing to take the
risk it doesn’t make any odds to you, does it?”
“None at all. You’re sure that you will come back as soon as the meeting
is adjourned, are you? Go on, then; but you had better take a friend’s
advice and think twice before you go into that room.”
Enoch, who had repeatedly told himself that nothing except detection
should turn him from his purpose, gave the guard an assuring nod, and
having satisfied himself that the way was clear, darted down the stairs
that led to the next lower floor. There was a guard there, but Enoch
stood in no fear of him. The fact that he had passed the sentry on his
own floor, was taken by all the guards and patrols in the building as
evidence that he had left his dormitory by permission of somebody who
had a right to give it. So long as he kept clear of the teachers and
remained in the building, he could move about without fear of being
questioned.
When Enoch reached the lower floor he saw at a glance that there was not
a single instant to be lost. There were a good many boys in the hall,
and the number was being rapidly augmented by first-class fellows, who
were coming out of their rooms to attend the meeting. Jones was there,
pacing restlessly up and down, and awaiting Enoch’s arrival with no
little impatience. His face was pale, and he rubbed his hands together
so nervously that it was a wonder he did not attract attention.
“I thought you were never coming,” said he, as Enoch approached. “Don’t
you think we had better give it up and find some other way of learning
about their plans?”
“Can you suggest any other way?” asked Enoch, in reply.
Jones was obliged to confess that he could not. He had racked his brain
in the hope of discovering some less dangerous mode of procedure, but
his thinking had amounted to nothing. In fact, there was no other way in
which the two spies could gain the information they desired than the one
Enoch had selected, because the first-class fellows kept entirely to
themselves while they were strolling about the building or grounds, and
if a lower class boy had attempted to approach them when they were
discussing their plans, he would have been ordered away without
ceremony.
“Well, then,” said Enoch, “I don’t see any way for it but to hide under
the benches and take the chances. We’ll go one at a time, and I will
take the lead. When you come in, give a low whistle, and I will reply in
the same way to show you where I am.”
The spies separated and began walking up and down the hall, moving in
opposite directions, and all the while drawing nearer to the door of the
room in which the meeting was to be held. Watching his opportunity, when
none of the boys who were gathered around the stove at the upper end of
the hall happened to be looking that way, Enoch darted into the room
and, in less time than it takes to write it, was concealed under one of
the benches. A few minutes later Jones was crouching by his side, and
none of the boys in the hall were the wiser for what they had done.