As Jim afterward said, he staked all on the size of his feet. He landed with both shoes on the cloth, snuffed the blaze out with a single stroke, and saved the supply wagons and the entire camp.
Now all was action. A sentry near by had fired the alarm. Vench and the unknown man were staging a furious wrestling match on the ground beside the wagons as the others dashed up and came to his help. Someone threw more fuel on the nearest fire, Major Rhodes ran up with his revolver in hand, and the whole camp, more or less dressed, came running after him. In the new light which the fire showed they saw Vench and the colonel drag the man to his feet.
“Just got you in time,” said the colonel, holding the man in a tight grip. “Am I right when I say your name is probably Maul?”
“Yes, my name is Jackson Maul,” was the reply, given in a deep voice. He gazed in haughty silence around at the gaping cadets.
“I’ll ask you to spend the rest of the night with us in our guard tent, Mr. Maul,” said the colonel, his revolver in his hand. “I may as well tell you that your ghost game is up, and the ghost of the Ridge safe in the county jail. I think you’ll find yourself in pretty heavy trouble for attempting to fire our camp.”
No reply was offered by the man who called himself Maul and they took him away, where a tent could serve as his place of imprisonment. Major Rhodes himself took the responsibility of watching him for the rest of the night. It was some time before the excited cadets went back to their beds. An examination showed them that the camp had been soaked in oil at a number of points, and had fire been applied to any of these places they would have been totally wiped out. It would have been a lucky thing if they had all escaped with their lives had the camp been fired.
On the following morning the man Maul was marched to Rideway and locked in jail with the man he had paid to play ghost. The full story now spread around the town and the Ridge people found out how they had been terrorized for years by the last of the Maul family in his effort to drive the Hydes away. With this capture of the two men the mystery of the ghost of Rustling Ridge came to an end, and from that time forward the inhabitants had nothing more to fear after dark. In time the two men and the clerk Rose were all given prison terms for mischief with malicious intent. The Hydes kept out of trouble from that time forward and the loud sheriff of the Ridge became softer in his speech, at least as long as the cadets were in the neighborhood. A number of the county newspapers gave high praise to the cadets and to Benson, the night telephone operator, for public-spirited duty.
Soon after these events the colonel called Rowen into his tent. He had been very much displeased with the conduct of the cadet, but as he reflected that things had now settled down, it would be wise to forget the whole thing, he felt sure. So he spoke mildly enough to the cadet, but he was surprised when the sulky one flared back at him.
“Never mind, Colonel Morrell, I don’t want to talk about anything!” was the astonishing statement. “I’m going home right away. Everything has been pushed against me during this whole encampment and I’m sick of it! I don’t want anything more to do with the cadet corps!”
“Very well, Mr. Rowen,” returned the colonel, still mildly. “You say everything has been pushed against you. But you would not believe Mercer’s word about the ghost starting the stampede. Now we have the word of the ghost himself that he started it and that Jim called out to him. Then, against orders, you took your revolver with you and shot it off at an improper time. Under those circumstances, do you still feel that you had everything against you on this camping trip?”