Chapter VIII: A Scare on the Road

Carrying their wheels to the back of the yard behind the drug store, the two cadets lifted them over a board fence and jumped after them. Then they crossed a vacant lot and came out on a back street. Here they lit their bicycle lamps and then leaped into the saddles and were off.

“It’s a fine night for a ride,” observed Andy. “Wish we didn’t have to go right back to the Hall. I’d like to take a spin of ten or twelve miles.”

“We might go around by the upper road,” answered Pepper. “It won’t take but half an hour longer at the most. I don’t think Ritter and Coulter will hurry themselves. They like to smoke too well.”

“Yes, and play pool, Pep. It’s a wonder the captain doesn’t find out what they are up to.”

“Well, I am not going to turn tell-tale.”

Reaching the main road leading to Putnam Hall, the two cadets followed this for a quarter of a mile and then branched off to the left, on what was familiarly known as the upper road—since it ran on higher ground than that which followed the lake shore. This made a long turn between the hills to the west of the school and would give them a ride of four or five miles extra.

Two miles of the upper road were covered when Pepper noticed that his lamp was growing dimmer. He stopped and dismounted and shook the lamp. No sound from within followed.

“Empty,” he declared. “Too bad. I should have filled it before I started.”

“Never mind, I’ll lead and you can follow,” answered Andy. “I don’t believe there is anything the matter with the road, anyway.”

Andy dashed ahead and Pepper followed him at a distance of fifty feet. Thus another half-mile was reeled off. Then Andy slowed up, calling upon his chum to do the same.

“My front tire is flattened out,” declared the acrobatic cadet. “I hope I haven’t got a bad puncture.”

“If it was bad I reckon you would have heard the air hiss,” answered Pepper.

The lamp was loosened from the wheel and turned on the flat tire, and both boys got close to find the puncture. Presently Pepper detected a small, sharp thorn sticking in the rubber. It had made a hole like that of a pin.

“I’ll wind a piece of tape around it,” said Andy. “That will hold till we get to the Hall, I guess,” and he brought out the bicycle tape from his repair bag.

Both boys were hard at work, bending over the wheel in the dim light of the lamp, when they were startled by hearing voices close to them. On both sides of the road were trees and bushes and the spot was certainly a lonely one.

“Somebody is coming—” began Pepper, when two figures stepped into the road and confronted the cadets.

The boys were amazed and alarmed, and with good reason. The figures were those of big boys or men, and each wore a green hood and a green mask which entirely concealed his face and head. More than this, each wore gloves with the finger-tips missing. Both carried heavy clubs in their hands.

For the moment the boys were so astonished they neither spoke nor moved. Then both leaped up and confronted the newcomers.

“We have them!” said one of the masked figures. “We have them at last.”

“Yes, we have them,” answered the other.

“Do you surrender?” demanded the first speaker of Andy and Pepper.

“Surrender? What for?” Pepper managed to ask.

“You shall know in due time. If you surrender, hand over your pocketbook.”

“I haven’t any pocketbook.”

“Yes, you have, and it has exactly two hundred dollars in it,” said the second masked fellow.

“We want both of your pocketbooks,” went on the first one who had spoken.

“I haven’t any pocketbook, either,” said Andy. “You’ve made a mistake in tackling us.”

“Let us take them to the cave for ransom!” cried the second fellow, and began to march around, waving his club over his head.

“Pep, this is a trick!” whispered the acrobatic youth. “Some of the fellows have followed us. Maybe they are going to initiate us in some new secret society.”

“By jinks, that’s so! Say, it would be great if we could get away from them!”

“Will you give up your pocketbooks?” demanded the first of the masked figures.

“Yes, and your red dancing-slippers,” added the second masked figure.

“Some of the cadets, beyond a doubt,” whispered Pepper. “Well, we’ve got no time for any initiations to-night.”

“Let’s pretend to submit,” answered Andy, in an equally low voice. “If I can only get this wheel pumped up it will be all right.” For the tire tape was now in place over the puncture.

“What say you?” demanded both figures, coming to a halt by the roadside, with clubs upraised.

“Let us mend this wheel first and we’ll do whatever you want,” answered Andy.

“It is well, proceed,” answered the leading masked person.

Andy already had his pocket-pump out, and he proceeded with all haste to pump up the tire. Then he put the pump back into his pocket.

“Take up your wheel,” he whispered. “Ride like mad when you get the chance. I am going to try to scare them.”

“The money!” roared one of the masked persons.

“Look! look!” screamed Andy, suddenly, and pointed into the woods. “The trees are on fire!”

The two masked figures wheeled around in fright. As they did this Andy and Pepper gave their wheels a push and leaped into the saddles. They pedalled with vigor and were soon fifty feet away.

“Come back! Come back!” yelled the two masked persons, in consternation.

“Not to-night!” called back Andy.

“You’ll have to find somebody else to initiate,” added Pepper.

“Confound the luck!” muttered one of the masked figures.

“And I thought we had them prisoners,” added the second masked person.

Laughing merrily over their escape, Andy and Pepper continued on their way to Putnam Hall. The darkness of the night speedily hid the two masked figures from their view.

“Did you discover who they were?” questioned the acrobatic youth, as they came in sight of the school.

“No. First I thought one of the fellows was Bart Conners, but he didn’t talk much like Bart.”

“Their voices had a familiar tone to them.”

“Yes, I know that. Well, whoever they were, they got left this time.”

“Maybe a whole crowd of them were back in the woods.”

“Perhaps. If so, we can find out who they are when they steal back into the Hall.”

“That’s an idea. Let us watch for them.”

The two cadets found Jack and the others anxiously awaiting their return.

“Ritter and Coulter just came in,” said the young major. “Ritter carried something in his pocket.”

“It’s all right—the drug clerk said it wouldn’t hurt our things a bit,” answered Pepper, and then he and Andy told of what had taken place at Cedarville and on the road.

“I didn’t hear of any new secret societies,” said Dale, who was present.

“Nor I,” added Jack. “But some of the fellows may be getting them up. It’s a mistake, though, to have initiations to-night. If the boys stay up late they’ll be as sleepy as owls at the inspection to-morrow.”

“I want to find out who those chaps are—if I possibly can,” said Pepper. “I am going to stay up, at least for awhile, and see if I can spot them.”

“And I’ll do the same,” added Andy.

Satisfied that no harm would now come to their outfits, Jack and the others retired. Andy and Pepper waited until all were asleep and then one stationed himself at a window on the east side of the Hall and the other at a window on the west.

For a good hour nobody appeared. Then Andy saw some figures moving down near the boat-house.

“The same pair, and they still have on the masks and hoods,” he said, after calling Pepper.

“Here they come,” said Pepper, a minute later, as the two masked figures approached the Hall. Then the two persons below passed out of sight behind the school.

“What do you suppose we had best do now?” questioned Pepper.

“Wait till they come upstairs.”

They waited, and thus ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed.

“I guess they are not coming up,” began Andy, when he heard a door close. Then came a murmuring of voices, and he and the Imp saw the dim forms of two cadets coming up a side stairs. The newcomers tiptoed their way along a corridor and one slipped into one dormitory and the other hurried into the room next to it.

“Joe Nelson and Harry Blossom!” whispered Pepper. “Who would have thought it!”

“I didn’t know they belonged to anything new.”

“Nor I. Well, we fooled them nicely.”

“Let us quiz them about it when we get the chance.”

“Sure.”

Andy and Pepper were tired enough to go to bed, and it did not take them long to get to sleep. When they awoke the Hall bell was clanging loudly. They were a little late, and so were some of the others, and there was a great rush to get dressed and downstairs on time.

The morning session was a brief one. During that period Reff Ritter got excused from his class for ten minutes, and Gus Coulter also got a leave of absence.

“I would like to go out a few minutes, Mr. Strong,” said Jack to the assistant teacher.

“Very well, Major Ruddy,” was the answer, and Jack hurried away and after Ritter and Coulter. He saw the conspirators go to a closet and get out two bottles of light-colored liquid. Then they visited the dormitory occupied by Jack and his friends, and also the rack where the cadets kept their swords and guns.

“What shall we do with the empty bottles?” Jack heard Coulter ask, as he and Ritter passed a door behind which the young major was in hiding.

“Put them in Sabine’s closet,” answered Ritter. “Then, if the worst comes to the worst, I can say that little sneak was in it.”

“All right,” answered Coulter, and the proposal was immediately carried out. Then the two conspirators went back to their class-room. But Jack got in ahead of them, and was deep in a history lesson when they entered.

The morning session at an end, it was announced that dinner would be served in the mess-room in a quarter of an hour. Losing no time, Jack and his chums ran to inspect their outfits. They found some parts of their uniforms damp, where the liquid from the bottles had been poured over them. The guns and Jack’s sword were also moist, but these were readily dried.

“I only hope the drug clerk didn’t make any mistake,” said the young major.

“We’ll know for certain after dinner,” answered Andy.

The visitors had already arrived, and Captain Putnam had had a salute from the new cannon on the campus fired in their honor, and was now entertaining them in his private dining-room. The cadets marched into the mess-room for dinner, and half an hour later dispersed, to prepare for the inspection.