CHAPTER IV.

THE SCENE OF OPERATIONS.

"Did you hear it, Dory?" called Matt Randolph, as soon as he saw the light at the door of the other.

"Did I hear it?" replied Dory, who was cool enough to smile at the absurdity of the question, though it was nothing more than the introduction to the subject in the minds of both. "I could not very well help hearing it, though I sleep as soundly as a bullfrog in winter."

"What was it?" demanded Matt, apparently more excited than Dory.

"That's the conundrum before the house at the present moment. I have not the least idea what it was," replied Dory. "It shook my windows, and at first I thought my bed was lifted up under me. It might have been an earthquake, though such convulsions are not the fashion in the State of Vermont."

"I thought it must be an earthquake at first," added Matt.

"Did you alter your mind?" asked Dory, as he stepped back into his room, and put on his shoes.

"Not exactly; but on second thought I concluded that it could not be an earthquake, and I was wondering what it could be, when I heard a door open," added Matt, who was fully dressed, for he had taken the time to put on his clothes before he came out of his room.

"I move you, Captain Randolph, that we don't try to imagine what it was, but that we go and look into the matter, and find out what it was," replied Dory, as he put on his coat, and led the way to the hall.

"That is the sensible thing to do; but a fellow can't expect to be very bright when he is shaken out of his slumbers by something like an earthquake," said Matt, as he followed Dory.

By this time several of the students had recovered, in a measure, from their consternation, and had opened their doors, some of them shaking with terror, as though they expected to be swallowed up immediately in some awful catastrophe.

"What is the matter, Dory?" Tucker Prince asked, as the two coxswains passed his door.

"Give it up, Tuck: ask me something easier," replied Dory, laughing. "I may be able to tell you something about it at a later hour in the morning."

"What was it, Dory?" asked Tom Topover.

"It was a tremendous noise; and that is all that is known about it at the present moment, on this floor of the dormitory."

"I knew as much as that before," added Tom.

"Then, you are as wise as any of us, Tom."

Dory and Matt did not pause to talk, but hastened to the lower floor. There was nothing below to explain the noise, and the outside door was locked as usual. Dory opened it, and they went out on the lawn. At this point they smelled something which was not powder, though it had an unknown chemical odor.

The building containing the schoolroom and workshops, or a part of the latter, was close to the dormitory; and the inquirers went in that direction. The office was in front of the shops, on the lower floor. It was an apartment of considerable size, which had been put in the year before, when the shops were enlarged. It was handsomely carpeted, and was really Captain Gildrock's private apartment; though Fatima Millweed used it, and kept the accounts of the institution there.

As the principal had indicated to his visitors the afternoon before, it contained a steel safe, as well as a couple of roll-top desks, and a number of easy-chairs; for visitors on business were received in this room. Captain Gildrock had sold a house the day before in the town, and had put the money he received in the safe until he could go to the bank in Burlington.

Dory had carried his lamp as far as the outside door of the dormitory, but the wind had blown the light out as soon as he came out of the building. He retained it in his hand as they walked to the shops, as the structure was called, taking its name from the working, rather than the school, room.

It was a dark night, cloudy and windy: in fact, it was blowing a smart gale from the south. Coming from the light into the gloom outside, Dory and Matt might as well have been blind, so far as seeing any thing was concerned. But every inch of the ground was familiar to them, and they walked directly to the shops. The chemical odor became more pronounced. They halted in front of the office. This apartment was locked, and they had no key to the door. They could not yet see any thing in the deep gloom, though their sight was improving.

"The explosion came from some point near us," said Dory, as he walked up to the door of the office, guided by instinct rather than sight.

"I can smell something, but I can't see a thing," added Matt.

"Here we are!" exclaimed Dory, when he had passed from the door to one of the windows of the office. "This window is open, and the mischief came from here!"

"Is it a break?" demanded Matt, beginning to be a little excited.

This was police slang; but Dory understood it, as any one might have done; and he replied that it was a "break."

"Look out, then, Dory!" added Matt, laying his hand on the shoulder of his companion. "The burglars may be still in the office; and such fellows carry revolvers, which they use when they get into a tight place."

"They can hardly be here now, after they have taken the trouble to wake up the entire neighborhood with such an explosion," replied Dory. "Take this lamp, Matt, and I will get in at the window, and strike a light."

"Don't do it, Dory!" protested Matt. "Wait a moment, and I will go back to the dormitory, and get a lantern out of the lower hall."

Without waiting for his companion, Matt ran back to the dormitory. A couple of lanterns were kept there for the use of the students in the evening, if they had occasion to go to the shops or elsewhere. Matt took one of them down, and lighted it, for there were matches in the tin box on the wall. When he had done so, he concluded to light the other, so that each of them could have one in conducting the examination.

Dory stood at the open window while his companion was gone; for he agreed with Matt, that prudence was a virtue at all times: and reasonable people practise it, unless they get too angry to do so, and then they regret it afterwards. He had begun to think that Matt was gone a long time, when he heard a sound inside of the office.

The noise startled him, for he had not believed the robbers delayed their flight so long after they had taken the trouble to announce themselves to all within hearing. He listened with his head thrust into the open window as far as the length of his neck would permit, and he was intensely interested from that moment.

If there were any robbers in the office, they must have heard what Matt said when he proposed to go for the lantern. Dory had always read the newspapers; and he knew something about the operations of burglars, though he lived far from any great city. The night-visitors to the office of the institution, he concluded, had blown open the steel safe, or attempted to do so. If they had succeeded, it could not have taken them more than a minute or two to scoop out the contents of the safe, or at least to pocket the money it contained.

He was just making up his mind that the burglars must have departed before any one had had time to come to the office, when the noise he had heard before was repeated. It sounded like some mechanical operation, and appeared to be on the farther side of the room, where there was a door opening into the carpenter's shop.

"I was a fool not to open this door before we finished the safe!" said some one in the room, in a low and subdued voice, and in a tone which indicated his disgust at the situation in which he found himself.

"Hurry up! The fellow will be back with the lantern in a moment, and then we shall be blown," added another voice.

"Then some one will get shot!" said the first speaker.

But at the same moment, the sound of the opening door came to Dory's ears. He was on the point of springing in at the window, to prevent the escape of the burglars, when he realized that he was almost sure to be shot, as the first speaker had suggested. He was unarmed; and against two men, as he supposed they were, he had a small chance of accomplishing any thing in the way of capturing them.

Through the open door into the shop he saw several flashes of light, and then he understood that the operators were provided with one or more dark-lanterns. He could hear their retreating footsteps in the shop; and he concluded that they intended to escape through one of the rear windows, which they could easily open, as they were fastened on the inside.

Two lights were approaching from the dormitory, Dory saw, as he withdrew his head from the window. But what use were they now? He had solved the enigma, and any further light on the subject was superfluous. The burglars had effected an entrance: whether the explosion had opened the safe, or not, was yet to be discovered. But while he was thinking of the matter, the robbers were getting away. This was all wrong, Dory suddenly realized.

"Help! Help! Burglars! Robbers!" shouted Dory, at the very top of his voice; and he had never been accused of having weak lungs.

"What are you about, Dory?" called Matt, as he rushed towards him.

"Doing the next best thing!" said Dory hastily. "Run to the dormitory, Matt, with all your might, and ring the bell, just as you would for fire."

"Do you think there are any burglars in the office?" asked Matt.

"Not now! But there have been at least two of them there, and now they are escaping by the back windows of the carpenter's shop! They are armed too. Hurry up, and ring the bell, Matt!" shouted Dory, in the ears of his companion, as he took one of the lanterns from him.

Placing the lantern on the doorstone of the office, Dory darted off at the fastest run he could get up for the rear of the building. He appeared to have forgotten that the burglars had revolvers.