Don Gordon's Shooting-Box, Harry Castlemon [first ebook reader .TXT] 📗
- Author: Harry Castlemon
Book online «Don Gordon's Shooting-Box, Harry Castlemon [first ebook reader .TXT] 📗». Author Harry Castlemon
Tom would have been glad to go with Duncan, for he wanted an opportunity to ask him what he thought of this boy who would not tell a lie when circumstances seemed to demand it; but as he could think up no good excuse for leaving Don just then, he remained with him, and Duncan went off alone. Dick was easily found, for he was loitering about waiting for a chance to speak to Duncan or Fisher. He expected that there 147was trouble ahead, and he wanted it distinctly understood that if it came, Duncan was the boy who was to blame for it.
“You’re a wise one, you are,” said he, when Clarence came up to him. “If it hadn’t been for some hocus-pocus that I don’t begin to understand, you would have got us all into a nice mess by your blundering. You told me to halt the ninth man, but it turned out to be somebody besides Don Gordon.”
“There’s where you are mistaken,” said Clarence. “It was Gordon and nobody else.”
“But he gave the signal all fair and square,” replied Dick, “and I’d like to know where he got it.”
“I am sure I don’t know. Fisher didn’t give it to him in my hearing, and I didn’t suppose he had it. I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry that you didn’t succeed in stopping him. He’s got a pocketful of money, and paid our bill at Cony’s last night like a gentleman; but he’s no good, and when the boys hear what he said to Tom and me just a few minutes ago, I don’t think they will go on any more excursions with him. He says that he will not blow on any of us, but 148if he is accused of running the guard, he will acknowledge it, because he can’t tell a lie.”
“Humph!” exclaimed Dick, contemptuously. “Somebody ought to make him the hero of a Sunday-school book. We don’t want anything more to do with him.”
“That’s what I say. Now be on your guard, and be careful how you talk to him.”
“But what shall I say to him if he insists on knowing why I challenged him?”
“Tell him as Fisher did, that you had to do it in order to protect yourself; that the officer of the day was talking with post No. 4, or something of that sort.”
Greatly to the relief and surprise of Tom Fisher and his party, no trouble grew out of that night’s work. The investigation came off that forenoon, but the matter was not sifted to the bottom, as the officer of the day had declared it should be, for the simple reason that it could not be done. All the floor-guards and sentries who had been on duty between the hours of ten in the evening and four in the morning were subjected to a thorough examination; but nothing was drawn from them. The innocent had nothing to tell, and the guilty ones 149were such adepts at lying that they succeeded in escaping punishment, even if they did not succeed in escaping suspicion. Dick Henderson said he had tried to stop somebody who ran past him; but he was quite positive that he did not know who he was. The officer of the day and the corporal of the guard were certain that they had looked into every room on all the floors, and that every bed was occupied. The only conclusion the superintendent could come to was, that somebody had been outside the grounds after taps; but who he was, and how he got out, were other and deeper questions. He held a council of war with the teachers after completing the examination of the sentries, and with them discussed various plans for preventing such excursions in future, or, at least, making them more difficult of accomplishment. One suggestion which he decided to adopt was carried out that very afternoon.
Of course Don and his guilty comrades were very anxious to learn the result of the investigation; and when the hour of recreation came, they sent out some of their number to interview the sentries and floor-guards. The reports these faithful scouts brought back were very encouraging. 150The general impression among the sentries who had faithfully performed their duty the night before seemed to be that, although the teachers had their suspicions, they would not proceed any further in the matter for the simple reason that nothing could be proved against anybody. They were also united in the belief that in future the buildings and grounds would be more closely guarded.
“Well, as soon as we find out what new precautions are to be taken, we can lay our plans accordingly,”accordingly,” said Fisher to his friend Duncan. “What is it, Bub?” he added, turning to Dick Henderson, who just then hurried up with a face full of news.
“Come with me and see for yourselves,” answered Dick. “Last night’s work was an unlucky thing for us, but I am not to blame for it.”
Dick led the way around the academy building and stopped in front of the back door. It was open, and in the lower hall stood a carpenter who was bending over a box of tools. Fisher and Duncan looked at Dick, but he only shrugged his shoulders and waved his hand toward the man, as if to say that if they wanted any information 151they could ask it of him. Taking the hint, Tom inquired:
“What are you doing in there?—Anything broken?”
“Not that I know of,” replied the man, looking up to see who it was that addressed him. “I am putting some new fastenings on these doors so that you boys can’t slip out so easily of nights. I am afraid you are getting to be a bad lot—a very bad lot,” he added, with a grin, as he picked up three or four strong bolts and made his way up the stairs.
Clarence was thunderstruck, while Tom was so highly enraged that for a minute or two he could not trust himself to speak.
DON’S YANKEE INVENTION.
“I am not to blame for it, fellows,” repeated Dick. “I did just as I was told to do, as nearly as I could. I know I did not succeed in stopping Don Gordon, and I don’t believe there is a boy in school who could have stopped him; but I did my best.”
“I hope you see now what you have done by your meddling,” exclaimed Tom, turning fiercely upon Duncan. “You are not at all to blame, Dick; only another time don’t take any private orders from anybody. We all run the same risk, and we ought all to have a word to say in regard to the manner in which things shall be conducted.”
“If Dick had stopped Gordon, as I told him to do, this thing never would have happened,” said Duncan, as soon as he had had time to collect his wits.
“There’s where I differ with you,” answered 153Tom. “The fact that Gordon wasn’t stopped does not in the least alter the case, so far as these bolts are concerned. If Don had been caught, the bolts would have been put on all the same, and, furthermore, you and I and all the rest of us would have had to stand a court-martial, for Don would have gone back on us as sure as you are a foot high. Dick ought to have let him pass.”
“And I would, too, if Clarence hadn’t told me to halt him,” exclaimed Dick.
“I know it. Duncan is the one we have to thank for the loss of many pleasant evenings we might have had this winter. We may as well throw away our keys, for they will be of no further use to us, now that the doors are to be bolted on the inside.”
“I don’t know why you should take on so about those bolts,” exclaimed Duncan, who began to think he had been scolded quite enough. “If we wanted to go to Cony’s to-night, what is there to hinder one of us from slipping up the stairs as soon as this man goes away, and drawing the bolts? Don’t throw away your key yet, Tom. It may come handy to you.”
154Fisher, who was too angry to reply, turned on his heel and walked away. Before many hours had passed all the boys belonging to the “set” had heard about the bolts, and listened with no little indignation to the story of Clarence Duncan’s “meddling”—all except Don Gordon, who did not know that he was the victim of misplaced confidence. The fellows were careful to keep that from his ears for fear that he and Clarence would come to blows over it. Some of them, would have looked upon a fight between these two as an interesting spectacle; but they knew that it would be followed by a court of inquiry, during which some things they wanted to keep concealed would probably be brought to light. They had learned that it was not quite safe to trust their friend Duncan too far; and as for Don, he was a stranger, and there was no telling how he would act or what he would say when he was told that he could take his choice between answering such questions as were propounded to him, and being punished by expulsion from the school.
“That would bring him to his senses,” said Tom to some of his cronies who had gathered 155about him to talk over the situation. “He says he wouldn’t blow on us, but I don’t believe a word of it. There isn’t a boy in school who can stand defiant in the presence of the superintendent when he draws down those gray eyebrows of his and looks at a fellow as if he meant to pierce him through. Hallo! here comes Henderson with more news. He’s a bully little scout, even if he did come near getting us all into trouble by halting Don Gordon. What is it this time, Dick?”
“We may as well follow your advice and throw away our keys, for they are of no use to us now,” was Dick’s reply. “The officer of the day goes up and tries those doors and examines the new fastenings as regularly as he makes his rounds.”
“There!” exclaimed Tom, in great disgust. “You see what Duncan has brought us to by being so smart. No more pancakes for us.”
During the next few weeks nothing happened at the academy that is worthy of record. Duncan and Don Gordon had rather a lonely time of it, for the members of the “set” were not as cordial toward them as they used to be. They did 156not cut them entirely, for they did not think that would be quite safe; but they did not seek them out and associate with them as freely as they would if they had been on friendly terms. Duncan took it very much to heart, but Don did not seem to care. He studied and drilled with the rest, and having served the sentence that had been passed upon him for overstaying the time for which his leave of absence was granted, he began to feel and act more like himself. So did Bert, who soon began to count his friends by the score. They were true friends, too, and very unlike the boys who belonged to Tom Fisher’s crowd.
It was not long before the Plebes began to show the result of their regular and fatiguing drills. They became handy with their muskets, very proficient in company and battalion evolutions, and, finally, they were ordered to go on dress parade. This honor brought with it a duty from which they had thus far been exempt, that of standing guard.
Up to this time Cony Ryan had been deserted by all except a very few of his old patrons who sometimes passed an hour or two there of a 157Saturday afternoon; but they never came away without telling one another that they had not enjoyed themselves in the least—that their visits now were not at all like the jolly times they used to have when they crowded into his little parlor after creeping by the sentries. There had been none of that sort of work of late. The sight of the bolts the carpenter had put on the doors, and the increased vigilance of the officer of the day, had taken all the courage out of the bravest of them; at least so it seemed, for no one ever thought of running the guard now. Tom Fisher had almost
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