CHAPTER XII
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 responsiblefor 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 theblindfolds. 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 ahazing trip, that had been positively hair-raising in its incidents, hadseemed to retire from the spot. Their laughter and songs now faded far awayin the distance.
"Well," uttered Bob, getting his eyes clear and his arms free, "we've hadan experience."
"I should say so," echoed Frank. "That old ice chute they dropped us intomust 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 thecountry surrounding Bellwood, even when they had got on solid ground outof 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 thelandscape could they discover a guiding light. They were in a scrubbylittle patch of woods, and they were confused even as to the points ofthe compass.
"I think this is the direction of the academy," said Frank, striking out ona venture.
"Yes; and we want to get there soon, too," replied Bob, "for we're going tohave a great storm in a few minutes."
As Bob spoke the big drops began to splash down. As the lads emerged upon aflat field, the drops seemed to form into streams, and they breasted thetempest breathless, blown about, and drenched to the skin.
"We've got to get shelter somewhere," declared Bob. "Let's put back for thetimber."
"I think I see some kind of a building ahead," observed Frank. "Yes, it's ahut or a barn. Hustle, now, and we'll find cover till the worst of this isover."
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 thedoor with a billet of wood he found, but could not budge it. The windowshad stout bars crisscrossing it.
"Give it up," he said at last. "No one living here, and padlocked as if itwas a bank. Hey, Frank, here's a chance."
In veering to the partial shelter of the lee side of the old structure, Bobhad noticed a sashless aperture answering for a window in the low attic ofthe cabin. He got a hold with fingers and toes in the chinks between thelogs, and steadily climbed up.
"Come on," he called. "It's high and dry under the roof," and his companionjoined him, both half reclining across a loose board floor.
"Hear that," said Bob, as the rain seemed to strike the roof in bucket-likevolume. "I hope the crowd who got us in this fix are ten miles from anyshelter."
The rain kept on without the slightest cessation. In fact, it seemed toincrease every minute in volume. Fully half an hour passed by. Neither ladthought of leaving shelter, and Bob had stretched himself out. Theconversation languished. Then Frank, catching himself nodding, sat up andlooked out of the window, noticing that his rugged, healthy comrade wasbreathing heavily in profound slumber.
"There's a light coming this way," spoke Frank to himself, as he peeredfrom the window. "If it's a wagon, I'll hustle down and see if there's anychance 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 themat 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 themat the padlock, and then their lantern illumined the room below. Gazingthrough a crack in the floor, Frank could make out all they did and wasable to overhear their conversation.
They were two rough-looking, trampish fellows. Each threw a bundle on thefloor. 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 soakedclothing.
"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 itsome bread, cheese, and a big black bottle, and the twain were soonenjoying themselves. When they had finished eating they lay down in thestraw, smoking short, stubby pipes and chatting with one another.
"Now, then, look a-here, Jem," one of them remarked, "you wouldn't see metramping around in this kind of weather if it wasn't that there was achance to get something out of it."
"Don't I tell you what's at the end of it, Dan?" retorted the other. "Don'tI 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 ofthat card, when we helps him get his plans through about this young kid upat 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 govand me therefore goes to a friend and we puts it in his strong safe. He istold that we has a card torn up with writing on it, atween us. Thearrangement is made that he doesn't let go the property till we bothpresents them there pieces of card together. So you see, the gov can't getthe property and run off with it. No more can I. Now, then, the gov says Ican 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 astrange thing to him that here, in a lonely loft hundreds of miles fromhome, by pure accident he should run across a clue to the person who hadstolen Samuel Mace's diamond bracelet, the mysterious theft of which had sodarkened our hero's young life.