SEVEN BURGLARS IN A SCRAPE.
The scene that followed beggars description. Mark had leaped forward to
seize the Texan’s hand, shouting aloud:
“Stop! stop! It’s Grace Fuller!”
Texas started back in surprise; at the same moment came the shot, which
was from the girl’s revolver. It was accidental, as she afterward
declared, though the plebes did not know it then. The result frightened
Grace even more than it did them, the bullet buried itself in the wall,
but the sound of the report was followed by a wail of agony from the
terrified Indian, which echoed down the hall. And Grace heard shouts
from various parts of the hotel, doors opening, people running about,
and she knew that her friends were in deadly peril.
A much more hopeless situation it would be hard to imagine; the girl
was horrified. But her first thought was had she wounded Indian, and
she dashed wildly down the hallway to them.
One glance at the huddled group of figures sufficed to answer that
question. Before she could make another sound there came a bounding
step upon the stairway.
“We’ll be discovered!” cried Mark. “Quick!”
He turned to the window; but a single glance outside showed him two
figures running across the lawn. There was no hope of escape there.
They were gone!
An instant later Grace Fuller’s clear tones rang in his ear.
“Come! Come!”
Like a flash she turned and dashed down the hallway to her room.
Mark followed at her heels, and the rest of them, too, dragging the
half-paralyzed and terrified Indian along, while the shouts and
footsteps swelled louder and louder to urge them on.
They were just in time. Grace Fuller had scarcely time to push the last
one in and then slam the door before three men, one of them her father,
dashed around a turn of the hall and confronted her white figure
standing at the door, the revolver still in her hand.
The huddled plebes inside were too alarmed to think. They heard the
quick-witted girl call to the men:
“Here! Hurry up. This way!”
And then they heard the footsteps die away again, as the men with
her at their head dashed down the hall toward the rear stairs of the
building. They knew that for the time they were safe.
They stood panting and breathless, listening for a moment. They heard
the noise at the rear increase; it was evident that everybody was
hurrying in that direction. Mark sprang to the window and looked out.
He saw three men running toward the foot of the ladder.
“There’s where they went up!” he heard one of them say.
And then came a shout from the rear and the three dashed around the
building in that direction, leaving the lawn clear and the place
deserted. Mark turned and cried to the others:
“Come! Quick! Now’s our chance!”
It was a desperate chance, but they took it.
“One dash for the camp,” whispered Texas. “Git in an’ hide, no matter
what!”
They leaped out of the window and made a dash for the ladder. A second
or two might make all the difference now. They might get a start, or
again they might find a man with a revolver to stop them at the foot.
It was a critical situation, and the plebes were quick as lightning,
even Indian.
Texas dropped to the ground, and Dewey after him. They could not wait
for the others to get down the ladder. Mark slid down like a flash,
holding to the side with one hand. Indian slipped halfway and tumbled
the rest. Chauncey, Sleepy and the Parson came down one on each side,
almost on top of them, and a second or two later the Seven were at the
foot staring about them like so many hunted animals.
“Come on!” cried Mark, seeing no one. “For your lives!”
They sprang forward and dashed away toward the camp. They had not gone
a dozen yards before there came a shout from the rear of the hotel, a
shout that swelled to a roar.
“There they go! Quick! Stop ’em! Halt!”
Halt? Not much! Those plebes were running as never did man run before.
Even Indian was breaking records, fear urging him to prodigies of
speed. Fortunately there was no one of the pursuers who was armed, but
they were in hot pursuit, and their shouts might have the camp awake
any moment.
It was a very short distance to the camp, but to the burglars it seemed
a league. They expected a pistol shot any moment, and yet they could
not run any faster. They bounded across the path, through the bushes
and on, until suddenly a high embankment loomed up before them. It
was Fort Clinton, and they dashed around the corner and into the camp
beyond.
They were not so quick but that the foremost of those in chase saw
clearly where they went; and the cry swelled out upon the breeze:
“The camp! The camp! The burglars are hiding in the camp! Don’t let
them get out!”
Fortunately the sentry of the post had been at the other end of the
path. There was no danger of his recognizing them, but he saw them
cross his beat and vanish among the white tents. He heard the cry of
“Burglars!” and as he came dashing down the path toward the spot his
shouts ran out above the others:
“Corporal of the guard! Post number three!”
Camp McPherson was in an uproar ten seconds after that. The shouting
awoke every cadet in the place and brought them all to their tent doors
at a bound. The young corporal dashed out of the guard tent and around
to the sentry’s aid, the tactical officer in command right at his
heels with a clank of sword. At the same moment up rushed the crowd of
excited half-clad men from the hotel.
“Burglars! Burglars! They’re hiding in the camp!”
The lieutenant (the tac) took in the situation in an instant. He dashed
down the path, warning the sentries as he ran. The officer at the guard
tent turned out the members of the guard a moment later and hurried
them away to double the watch about the camp. At the same time the
“long roll” was being sounded by a drum orderly up by the color line,
summoning the cadets to form at once on the company street.
Truly those burglars were to have a hard time getting out of that trap,
into which they had gotten so easily.
Meanwhile, what as to the Banded Seven? The time between when they
entered camp and rushed into their two tents and when the company
battalion formed was perhaps one minute. In that brief space the
plebes had flung off their clothes and hid them feverishly under their
blankets, then leaped into their uniforms and fallen into line. And
that was the end of their danger.
The battalion once formed there was a hasty roll call, showing all
present. And then began a search of the place. The officers, and some
of the men from the hotel searched every tent, every spot within the
camp. And when they found no burglars they gathered together and stared
at each other and wondered how that could be. The tacs interviewed
the sentries, and each swore that no burglars or any one else had
run across their beats. After which came another search, and another
failure, and more mystery.
That those burglars had been cadets on a lark no one dreamed. For they
had been desperate-looking burglars, masked and armed. But where were
they now?
No one knew, and no one knows to this day. The cadets returned to their
tents, discussing the curious situation, and in a few minutes more the
camp had settled into its customary stillness.