_ CHAPTER VII. FOILING A PLOT
"Save me! Save me!" yelled Adrian Bagot.
"I'm drowning!" screamed Ed Simpson.
"I'm sinking!" shouted John Higley.
The three conspirators were floundering about in the water. Because of the rope nooses about their feet their efforts to stand upright were not entirely successful.
"Who did this?" inquired Bagot angrily, as he tried to get rid of a mouthful of water.
"If--if I-I die they'll hang for this!" spluttered Ed Simpson.
"No danger of your drowning, you're too mean," said Jack. "Besides it's only up to your knees. Stand up and wade out."
By this time the three lads, their clothing dripping with water, had managed to stand upright. They reached down under the dancing wavelets and loosened the nooses.
"You'll pay for this, Jack Ranger," shouted Adrian, shaking his fist at our hero.
"All right, I'm ready whenever you are," was the cool answer. "Come on, fellows, we don't want to be late for the lecture," and he started from the water, followed by his chums.
"I'll have you arrested for damaging my clothes," exclaimed Ed.
"And I suppose you'd tell on the witness stand about what you intended to do to ours," went on Jack. "I guess you'll cry 'quits,' that's what you'll do. You tried to play a trick on us, but you got left. So long. Don't miss the lecture."
He scrambled ashore, his comrades doing likewise, while the three lads who had taken such an unexpected bath waded out as best they could. They were sorry looking sights.
"But I don't exactly un-d-d-d-erstand how it it h-h-h-appened?" stuttered Will, who had not had hold of one of the ropes.
"I just made slip nooses, and placed them where they'd have to step into them before they could lay hands on the clothes," explained Jack. "Budge gave me the signal when they were inside the ropes."
"And then we just pulled," put in Nat. "Wow! It was a corker, Jack! How did you think of it?"
"It just happened to come to me. Say didn't they come down off that bank sailing, though?"
"I pulled as if I was landing a ten pound pickerel," said Fred. "I wonder who I had."
"Didn't stop to notice," Jack said, as he slipped on his coat. "They all came together. What a splash they made!"
By this time the three conspirators had crawled up the bank. They were so soaking wet that it was hard to walk. Their shoes "squashed" out water at every step. They sat down on the grass, took them off, and removed some of their garments, which they proceeded to wring out.
"Better hurry up," advised Jack, as he finished dressing. "Lecture begins in about two hours, and you're quite a way from home."
"I'll--" began Ed Simpson, when Adrian stopped him with a gesture.
"Sorry we have to leave you," Sam went on. "If you'd sent your cards we would have had the water warmed for you. Hope you didn't find it too chilly."
The three cronies did not reply, but went on trying to get as much water as possible from their garments. Leaving them sitting on the grass, as the afternoon waned into evening, the swimmers hurried back to the academy.
When the roll was called at the evening lecture, which was at an early hour, Jack and his friends replied "here!"
For a week or more after the episode at the lake, matters at the academy went on in a rather more even tenor than was usual. One night Sam, who finished his studying early went to Jack's room.
"Boning away?" he asked.
"Just finishing my Caesar," was the reply. "Why, anything on?"
"Nothing special," replied Sam. "Do you feel anything queer in your bones?"
"Not so much as a touch of fever and ague," replied Jack with a laugh. "Do you need quinine?"
"Quit your fooling. I mean don't you feel as if you wanted to do something?"
"Oh I'm always that way, more or less," Jack admitted. "I'm not taking anything for it, though."
"I'd like to take a stroll," said Sam. "I think that would quiet me down. I feel just as if something was going to happen."
"Probably something will, if we go out at this hour," Jack said. "It's against the rules."
"I know it is, but it wouldn't be the first time you or I did it. Come on, let's go out. Down the trellis, the way you did when you discovered Grimm smoking."
"I don't know," began Jack.
"Of course you don't," interrupted Sam. "I'll attend to all that. Come on."
Needing no more urging, Jack laid aside his book, turned his light low, and soon he and Sam were cautiously making their way from Jack's window, along a trellis and drain pipe to the ground.
"There!" exclaimed Sam, as he dropped lightly to the earth. "I feel better already. Some of the restlessness has gone."
"Keep shady," muttered Jack. "Some of the teachers have rooms near here."
They walked along under the shadow of the Hall until they came to a window from which a brilliant light streamed forth. It came from a crack between the lowered shade and the casement. It was impossible to pass it without seeing what was going on inside the apartment. At the same time they could hear the murmur of voices.
"Adrian Bagot, and his two cronies up to some trick!" whispered Jack, as he grasped Sam by the arm.
The two friends saw the three new students bending over a table, containing a pot of something, which they seemed to be stirring with a long stick.
"What are they up to?" whispered Sam.
"Experimenting with chemicals, perhaps," said Jack.
"Don't you believe it," retorted Sam. "They're up to some game, you can bet. I wonder if we can't get wise to what it is."
Cautiously they drew nearer to the window. They found it was open a crack.
"Will it make much of an explosion?" asked Ed Simpson.
"Hardly any," replied Higley. "Only a puff and lots of smoke, but it will leave its mark all right, and I guess those fresh friends of Jack Ranger's will laugh on the other corner of their mouths."
"I'd like to get even with them before the term closes," put in Adrian.
"We'll do it all right," went on Ed.
"Don't be too sure of that," whispered Jack.
It did not require much effort on the part of Jack and Sam to understand what the three conspirators were up to. Their conversation, which floated through the opened window, and their references to certain localities put the two listeners in possession of the whole scheme.
"Well, if that isn't the limit," said Jack in a whisper. "I wouldn't believe they'd dare to do it."
"How can we foil their plans?" asked Sam.
"Hark, some one is coming," said Jack, dropping down on his hands and knees, an example which Sam followed. Then came a cautious signal, a whistle.
"It's John Smith, my Indian friend!" exclaimed Jack. "He must have just got back," for the half-breed had been away for a few weeks, as one of his relatives was ill. Jack sounded a cautious whistle in reply, and soon the Indian student was at his side. There were hurried greetings, and Jack soon explained the situation.
"Let me think it over a minute," said John Smith. "It takes me rather suddenly."
For a few seconds John remained in deep thought. Then he exclaimed:
"I think I have it. Have you any chemicals in your room, Jack?"
"Plenty," was the answer. "I've been boning on that lately, and I got a fresh supply from the laboratory the other day to experiment with."
"Then I think we'll make these chaps open their eyes."
The three friends hurried to Jack's room, where they were busy for some time, behind carefully drawn shades. At the end of about two hours, Jack, who had been keeping watch from a window, exclaimed:
"There they go with the stuff. It's time we got a move on."
"They'll not set it off until midnight," spoke Sam, "That's what they said. We'll have time enough to do what we are going to."
The three friends worked hurriedly. When they had finished they had several packages. Down the trellis they went and out on the campus, which was shrouded in darkness.
They made their way to the foot of a statue of George Washington, which stood on a broad base in front of the school. There stood the Father of His Country, with outstretched arms, as if warning invaders away from the precincts of learning.
"They've been here!" said Sam in a whisper.
He pointed to some straggling black lines at the base of the figure, and to a thin thing like a string: which led over the grass toward the room of Adrian Bagot.
"They've put our initials in powder here," said Jack. "Trying to throw the blame on us when it goes off."
"We'll soon fix that," replied Sam. The three boys made some rapid movements around the statue, and then cut the thin thing which led to the room of young Bagot.
"I guess when he touches off that fuse he'll wonder what has happened," observed John Smith.
"Have you enough of the other fuse?" asked Jack.
"Plenty," replied the Indian student. "Have you changed the initials?"
"Every one," said Sam.
"Then I think we can go back," said John. "Take care of my fuse. Don't get tangled up in it."
The boys made their way quietly to a spot just under the window of Bagot's room. There they placed what seemed to be a piece of board.
"Now back to your room, and wait until they start the fun," said John.
The three friends had not long to wait. A little after midnight they heard Bagot's window cautiously open. There was the sound of a match striking, and then Sam called to Jack:
"Let her go!"
A second later a thin trail of fire spurted along the ground from the sporty student's room. It was followed by a larger one from the foot of the trellis by which Jack had descended. A few seconds later it seemed as if a Fourth of July celebration was in progress.
Sparks of fire ran along to the statue of the first President. Then there was a puff of smoke, and in front of the hero of the Revolution there shot up dancing flames.
At the same time there sounded several sharp explosions, as though the British were firing on the Minute Men at Lexington, and the latter were replying as fast as they could load and discharge their flintlocks.
Windows began to go up here and there, and heads were thrust forth.
"What is it?" "What's the matter?" "Are there burglars?" were some of the cries.
Brighter now burned the fire at the foot of the statue, which was enveloped in a cloud of flame and smoke, and, had the original been alive he must have delighted in the baptism of gunpowder.
Then there came a louder explosion. It was followed by a shower of sparks, and a trail of sparks began running along the ground, toward the college.
An instant later there blazed forth on a board as on an illuminated sign, in front of the room of Adrian Bagot the words in letters of fire:
WE DID IT.
Underneath, in smaller characters were the initials;
"A.B. E.S. J.H."
"Wait until Dr. Mead sees that," said Jack, as he looked out on the campus, which was now a scene of brilliancy. _