CHAPTER XI.STEALING FROM THIEVES.
“Now,” said Mark, when he rejoined his companions, “we’ve got pretty definite information to go on with now. Mr. Chandler’s got our money in his room. The question is what are we to do next?”
The plebes were sitting over in a secluded corner of Trophy Point discussing this. Texas doubled up his fists with an angry exclamation.
“Git it back!” growled he, with a characteristic disregard of details.
“But how?” said Mark. “Of course we could have him arrested, for he knew the money was ours. But if we did he’d tell how we skipped camp to dig it and we’d be dismissed from West Point. Then there’d be the old Nick to pay.”
“One case where I’d be thankful I’m not in the habit of paying my debts,” observed Dewey, tacking on a stray “b’gee” as usual. “As to Bull and his cousin, I say we punch their faces till they give up the money. Punch their faces, b’gee!”
“Doggone their boots!” growled Texas.
“That might hurt their boots,” laughed Mark, “but it wouldn’t do us any good. I haven’t heard any feasible suggestion yet. You know possession is nine points, and they’ve got that.”
It was Mark who finally hit upon a plan that seemed possible. It was a wild and woolly plan, too, and it took Texas with a rush.
“They stole it from us,” said Mark. “I don’t see what better we can do than steal it back again.”
“You don’t mean——” gasped Dewey—“b’gee——”
“Yes, I do,” laughed Mark. “And I mean this very night, too. I mean that we turn burglars and get our money out of there.”
And Mr. Jeremiah Powers let out a whoop just then that made the windows rattle over in that selfsame hotel. Jeremiah Powers hadn’t been quite so excited since the time he rode out and tried to hold up the cadet battalion. When the others assented to the plan and vowed their aid, he nearly had a fit.
After that the Seven did almost nothing but glance at their watches during the fast-waning Sunday afternoon. There was no parade to pass the time. It seemed an agebetween the sunset gun and supper; and as for tattoo, all the Parson’s much-vaunted geologic periods, times, ages and eras, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Treassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, were not to be compared with it in length. When they did finally get into bed they waited another age for taps to sound, and another for the tac to inspect, and another till the sentry called half-past ten, and another for eleven, and another for half-past that, and then twelve, and they couldn’t stand it any longer.
No matter if it was a rather early hour for burglars to begin operations, they could not wait any longer. Not a man of them had gone to sleep (except Indian), such was their impatience. They got up, all of them, and began to dress hastily, putting on some old clothes a drum orderly had smuggled in. And a few minutes later that momentous expedition crossed the sentry post unseen and sat down in old Fort Clinton.
Nobody means to say for a moment that there was one of them who was not badly scared just then. None of them was used to playing burglar and they could not but see that it was a very serious and dangerous business at best. Old hands at it often get into serious scrapes, so what shall we say of greenhorns? The only one of themwho had ever “done a job” was Texas, who had once gotten Mark out of a bad scrape that way.
They discussed the programme they were to follow. They knew where the room was and that it could be reached by climbing the piazza pillars to the roof above. Texas had climbed those pillars once before, and he had a rope to help Mark and the rest up this time. After that they were to enter that room, and Texas, the desperate cowboy, was to hold young Chandler up till the deed was done. That was all, very simple. But, oh, how they shivered!
They were ugly enough looking fellows externally. The clothes they wore were old and tough-looking, turned up at the collars. Mark had in his free hand a dark lantern, and Texas was clutching in his pocket a heavy forty-four caliber which he meant to use. They had masks, every one of them, or such masks as they could make out of their handkerchiefs. And anybody who saw them stealing across the grass to the hotel grounds would have been very much alarmed indeed.
Fortunately it was a cloudy night, black as pitch.
Even the white trousers of the lonely sentries who paced the walks about the camp were scarcely distinguishable.The hotel was a black, indistinct mass looming up in front of them. The chances of recognition under such circumstances were few, the plebes realized with a sense of relief.
Once hiding close under the shadow of the building they wasted but little time in consultation. It was a creepy sort of business altogether, but then they had started, and so there was nothing to do but go right ahead. Most of them had recovered from their first nervousness at this crisis anyway, of course excepting poor Indian, who had seated himself flat on the ground in a state of collapse. Dewey was behind him ready to grab him by the mouth in case one of Indian’s now famous howls of terror should show any signs of breaking loose.
Texas and Mark meanwhile were proceeding calmly to business. The pillars were very wide and high, and Mark foresaw trouble in getting himself up them with his crippled arm. And there was still more trouble in the case of the gentleman from Indianapolis, whose fat little legs wouldn’t reach halfway around. The difficulty was fortunately removed by the finding of a short ladder in back of the house. A very few minutes later the seven anxious plebes were lying upon the piazza roof.
They wormed their way up close to the wall of the building where they were safe from observation. And while Mark devoted himself to keeping Indian quiet Texas set out to reconnoiter. Poor Indian didn’t want to come, and worse yet, he didn’t want to stay. He felt safer in the hotel as a burglar than all alone outside in the darkness, and he had an idea that even Camp McPherson wasn’t safe without Mark. “Alas, poor Indian!”
Meanwhile as to Texas. Did you ever walk on a tin roof? If you have you can imagine what a soul-stirring, ear-splitting operation it is, at midnight, especially when you are in burglar’s costume, with a revolver in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. Every single individual bit of tin on the flooring seemed to have a new and original kind of sound to make, and the six watchers quailed at every one of them.
Texas was hunting for the window that led into the hall of the building. The room they meant to enter was unfortunately on the other side. They had to force the window, creep down the hall and get into that room. If they could simply have entered it from a window, they might have gotten out of this foolish scrape a good deal more simply than they did.
Texas managed to locate the window without much trouble, and fortunately he found it open. He beckoned the others silently, and they crept one by one down to the place, Indian making twice as much noise as any one because he weighed more. At any rate they climbed through the window and into the lonely hall of the hotel, where they stood and listened anxiously. They had not been very quiet, but they did not believe they had awakened any one; and after this they could be quieter.
They would have been very much scared and terrified plebes, more so, all of them, than was Master Smith now, if they could have known the true state of affairs. For they had awakened some one. And though they had not the least suspicion of it, a pair of sharp eyes had been watching their every move.
They were very beautiful eyes, too. They belonged to a young girl, a girl with lovely features and bright golden hair. She was sleeping in one of the rooms on the second floor that fronted on the piazza, and the sound that awakened her had been the gentle tap upon the roof when the ladder had been raised. She sat up in bed, and a moment later arose and crept tremblingly to the window. Peering out into the darkness she saw the topof the ladder, and a moment later saw a masked face appear above it, and a masked figure climb up and creep into the shadow of the building. Another followed it instantly, and another; and then without a sound the girl dodged down and stole across the floor of the room.
She crept silently to a trunk that was in one corner; she raised the lid and fumbled about anxiously in the darkness for something. It felt cold, like polished steel, when she found what she wanted. She picked it up and slipped a wrapper over her shoulders, then softly opened the door of her room to peer out into the hall.
Meanwhile as to the Seven whom we left standing inside of the window down near the other end. They were, as has been said, entirely unconscious of what has just been mentioned. Texas had crept forward and extinguished the light that burned in the hall, and they were now standing in total darkness but for the single ray of the lantern. They held a whispered conversation as to what they should do next.
Parson Stanard volunteered to pick the lock of Chandler’s door; he wasn’t a burglar by profession, by Zeus, said he, but he believed in a gentleman of culture knowing something about all the arts and professions. (This waswhispered in all seriousness.) And so the Parson crept up to the door, the lantern in his hand. He knelt down before the lock and fell to examining it cautiously, finally thrusting in a bent piece of wire and getting to work. He said he could get that door open in two minutes.
Meanwhile the others were huddled together waiting anxiously. Indian was leaning against the wall, making it shake with his nervous trembling, and Texas was peering out of the window to make sure that there was no sign of danger there. And then suddenly came the thunderclap.
Nothing could be imagined more terrifying to the amateur burglars than what actually happened in the next half minute. There came first the sound of a creaking door, a sound that made them start back. And an instant later a figure sprang out into the hallway, a figure that they could plainly see in the darkness, for it was white as snow. The figure raised one arm and called in a voice that was clear and unfaltering:
“What are you doing there?”
The plebes stood aghast, trembling. They knew the voice, and that but increased their horror. For it was Grace Fuller, their dearest friend!
They all recognized her but one, and that was Texas; Texas had been leaning out of the window and the voice was not so distinct to him. He wheeled about with the swiftness of a panther, giving vent to a cry of anger as he did so. He flung his hand around to his pocket and whipped out his revolver. Before the others could make a move to stop him he swung it up to his shoulder.
And an instant later there came a blinding flash of light and a loud report that awoke the echoes of the silent building.