CHAPTER X

PURSUIT AND ESCAPE

“Can you beat it?” gurgled Harry Durfee, ecstatically.

“It’s the swellest thing ever!” chuckled Roeder.

“O you April Fools!” murmured Alf.

“Say, but I’d love to be here in the morning,” sighed Arthur.

“You’d get killed if you were,” said Chambers. Tom was looking uneasily at the buildings. To his imagination the entrance to Knowles expressed indignation and horror; and the empty windows, amazed and scandalized, seemed whispering to each other of the vandalism being perpetrated below.

“Come on, fellows,” he urged. “Let’s get out of this.”

“I hate to leave it,” said Dan. “It’s positively beautiful!”

“Tom’s right,” Alf said. “We’d better sneak before some one sees us. Come on, fellows.”

So they hurried back across the lawn to the shadow of the dormitory, and from there to the comparative safety of the shrubbery.

“We’ll get out where we came in,” announced Alf. “That’s good luck, they say.” They discussed the success of their enterprise in low voices as they crept along the edge of the bushes.

“I’d give a month’s allowance,” said Tom Roeder, “if I could only be hidden up there somewhere when they find it out in the morning. Say, won’t they be hot under the collar?”

“Rip-snorting!” agreed Durfee. “And the beauty of it is that they’ll know Yardley did it, but won’t be able to prove it.”

“How about the chap where you got the cloth, Alf?” Dan inquired. “Think he will tell?”

“Never. He’s a friend of mine.”

“How about the poles and the thumbtacks?” asked Chambers.

“I got the poles at the lumber yard. It only took a minute, and they’ll forget all about it. The thumbtacks I’ve had for a year or so. And the blue paint――” Alf chuckled.

“What about that?” asked Durfee.

“Found it in Mr. McCarthy’s room and borrowed it.” (Mr. McCarthy was the janitor, and had a repair shop in the basement of Oxford Hall.) “We’re safe enough if we can get back to bed without being spotted.”

“Hope so,” answered Chambers. “Wish I were there now. What’s that?” He stopped, and Durfee, colliding against him, said “Ow!” loudly, and was told to keep still. They paused and listened.

“Did you hear anything?” whispered Dan.

“Thought I did. I wish that moon would go home.”

“Come on,” muttered Tom, “and keep in close to the bushes.”

They went forward again, refraining from conversation now, and walking as softly as they could. The corner of the grounds lay only a hundred feet or so away, when, suddenly, from the shadow of a tall bush directly in their path, stepped a man.

“Here, what you doin’?” asked a deep and angry voice.

For an instant panic rooted them where they stood. Then Alf whispered hoarsely “_Scatter!_” and eight forms sprang away in almost as many directions. Most of the fellows made for the fence, crashing through the shrubbery at various points, but Alf and Durfee dashed straight past the gardener, who, having left the comfort of his bed in some haste, was only partly dressed, and eluded him easily. Of the number only Gerald made a wrong move, for which inexperience in the matter of midnight adventures with irate caretakers was to blame.

Gerald, who had been one of the last in the line, turned and ran into the open, possibly with the idea of escaping by the gate, which, had he reached it, he would have found to be tightly locked. The gardener made a grab at Alf as he slipped by, failed to reach him, started toward the fence, which seemed at the next instant to be fairly swarming with boys, and then saw Gerald out in the moonlight. Perhaps he preferred open country to the pitfalls of shrubbery. At all events, he set out after Gerald; and, being fairly long-legged and decidedly active for his middle age, soon began to gain on the quarry.

It was Dan, dropping to safety beyond the iron pickets, with only a rent in his trousers to show for the adventure, who first saw Gerald’s plight. To get back would be a much more difficult task than getting out had proved, and he knew that before he could gain the scene the chase would be over. So he raised his voice, and shouted to Alf, in the hope that the latter had not yet got out of the grounds.

“Alf! O Alf! He’s after Gerald!”

“All right!” came the reply promptly and cheerfully from toward the corner; and in a moment Dan saw both Alf and Durfee running out of the shadows toward where Gerald, terror lending him speed, was now almost within reach of the trees and shrubbery about the gate lodge, with the gardener still gaining, but a good ten yards behind.

“Come on,” shouted Dan, and raced along the fence with the rest at his heels, intending to reach the scene by way of the road. At that moment Alf called:

“Give him the slip, kid, and make for the corner!”

Gerald heard, in spite of the pounding of his heart, dashed through a clump of Japanese barberries to the detriment of his attire, and swung around back of the lodge house. He heard the pursuer floundering heavily after him as he raced across the avenue in front of the gate. One glance at the latter was sufficient to tell him that escape by that way was hopeless.

“Give up!” panted the gardener as he came after. “I seen yer an’ I know who you are!”

But Gerald had glimpsed Alf and Durfee at the edge of the trees near the fence, and he sped straight toward them. What happened after that was always a very confused memory to Gerald. He remembered hearing Alf say, “Make for the post in the corner and shin over quick,” as he reached him. Then there was a cry and the sound of some one falling, and hurrying steps behind him. Breathless and weak, he was trying vainly to climb up between the stone post and the nearest picket when help came from behind; and in a second he was up and over, and Alf and Durfee had seized him between them and were racing across the road into the darkness of the woods.

Then he was aware that flight had stopped, for which he was enormously grateful, and that the entire company was reposing on the ground, regaining breath and listening for sounds from beyond the fence.

“There he is,” whispered Durfee.

There was a rustling amid the shrubbery, and the boys hugged the ground.

“Think he can see us?” asked Dan in Tom’s ear.

“No, he won’t look for us here. He thinks we’ve hit the road, probably. Listen, he’s going back.”

Finding that his prey had escaped, the gardener was retracing his steps toward the gate-lodge. Once they heard him mutter something in very disgusted tones, and Alf chuckled.

“Right you are, old man,” he whispered in the direction of the retreating gardener. “Them’s my sentiments.”

“I vote we move on a bit,” said Roeder. “He might take it into his head to come out and find us here.”

“I guess he’s through for the night,” replied Tom, “but I think we might as well put a little more distance between us and the scene of the crime.”

They got up and made their way as silently as possible down the road toward home. It was not until they had put a good half mile between them and the Broadwood grounds that another halt was called, and they found seats on a bank where they could lean their backs against a fence and rest. The moon was well down in the west by then, and was slipping in and out of a bank of clouds. Chambers looked at his watch and said, “Phew!”

“What time is it?” asked Alf.

“Twenty minutes to one,” answered Chambers. “I thought it was about twelve! I’d hate to be seen getting back to the room!”

“Well, I don’t believe it would make much difference,” said Dan. “I fancy our goose is cooked anyway. That old butter-in saw us as plain as daylight.”

“I don’t believe he did,” answered Alf. “Not even as plain as moonlight. It was fairly dark down there in those bushes. The only fellow he might have had a good look at is Gerald, and even he was running away all the time. What the dickens did you run out onto the lawn for, Gerald?”

“I don’t know. I――I just ran anywhere. I think I had an idea of getting out by the gate.”

“I told you the gate was locked, didn’t I? Well, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. There’s one hope for us, fellows, and that is that the old codger may think we were Broadwood fellows out for a lark.”

“Don’t believe Broadwood fellows ever have larks,” responded Roeder, pessimistically.

“That’s so, though,” said Chambers, hopefully. “I hadn’t thought of that. Seems to me it would be a natural supposition, eh? That we were Broadwood chaps, I mean.”

“If we were we wouldn’t have made for the fence,” said Durfee. “We’d have made for the dormitories.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Think he saw you, Gerald?”

“I don’t believe he saw my face,” was the answer.

“I suppose,” said Alf, disgustedly, “that he will waltz up to the school and see that sign and yank it down.”

“Bet you he’s in bed and asleep long before this,” replied Arthur. “He probably thinks we were Broadwood fellows. In the morning he will go up and report us, and they’ll have a terrible time trying to find out who we were. Wouldn’t be surprised if they expelled the whole school,” he ended with a laugh.

“Well, meanwhile,” said Dan, soberly, “it’s up to us to get back to Yardley. First thing we know we’ll be meeting the milkman!”

“Wish we might,” said Alf, cheerfully. “I’d give a quarter for a glass of milk.”

“And a doughnut,” added Durfee. “Wish we had those sandwiches now. I’m beastly hungry.”

“And I’m beastly sleepy.” Tom yawned as he got to his feet and followed the others along the road. Gerald ranged himself alongside Alf.

“What happened to him?” he asked.

“What happened to who, Gerald?”

“The gardener, when I passed you and Durfee.”

“Oh, nothing much. He came along and didn’t see us, and I happened to have my foot out, and he very stupidly fell over it. That’s all. Then Harry and I ran like thunder and boosted you over. You were apparently going to sleep on the side of the post; and we got over about six yards ahead of the gardener, I guess. It was a narrow squeak.”

“Do you think we will get in trouble?” asked Gerald, anxiously.

“Wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” answered Alf, cheerfully. “If I fall asleep, Gerald, and walk into a fence, I wish you’d wake me up, please.”

That trip back to Yardley wasn’t much fun. They were all pretty tired and rather sleepy, and the four miles seemed like ten. Fortunately, they met no one on the way until they reached the station at Wissining. There a freight crew was busying itself about the platform, but it was quite dark by then, and they slipped past unheard and unseen. Once on school ground they stopped at the foot of The Prospect and held council. In view of what Alf termed the extemporaneous incidents of their visit to Broadwood, it had become more than ever desirable that they reach their several rooms unseen. To that end it was decided that they should gain their dormitories by way of the gymnasium, and should go one at a time. So they skirted the base of the hill until they were near the tennis courts, and then gained the porch of the gymnasium. From there, out of sight of any dormitory window, they made their way, one at a time, toward their rooms. The Yard was dark and, in the end, the last of the Predatory Marauders gained safety and seclusion apparently undetected.

In 28 Clarke there was little conversation during the hurried process of disrobing. It was practically all contained in two sentences, as follows:

“If anything comes of this, Gerald, please remember that I did my best to keep you out of it.” (This in a stern and somewhat displeased tone of voice.)

“Yes, Dan, I will.” (This very, very meekly.)

Then they both went to sleep and, in spite of the uncertainties of the future, slumbered as soundly as though there was no such thing as a conscience!