Jim had been looking up into the branches of the tree thoughtfully and now his friend followed his gaze. He saw that the tree, which grew so close to the house, extended at least two strong limbs a few feet over the roof of the porch shelter.
“There isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t climb this tree and drop onto the roof,” Terry said. “There are four windows that we can reach.”
“Yes, and the roof can’t be seen from the street,” Jim pointed out. “Think we had better go to it?”
“Yes, I do. The trunk of the tree isn’t so big that we can’t climb it. But I’m afraid that we’ll get our uniforms fearfully dirty, because we’ll have to take off our overcoats to climb.”
“Bother the uniforms!” cried Jim, impatiently. “We can have them cleaned. I’m going up.”
“Wait until I take a look around, to see if the gentleman is still taking a walk,” suggested Terry. “Stay here and keep close to the tree until I get back.”
With this final word the red-head glided off into the darkness and was lost to Jim’s sight. Two or three minutes passed, and Jim was just growing restless, when young Mr. Mackson rejoined him.
“Coast is clear,” he informed him. “The caretaker is around on the other side and just bound for the back garden. I don’t think we’ll be troubled with him. So here goes my overcoat.”
Without wasting further time the cadets slipped out of their heavy coats and Terry dropped his carelessly on the ground nearby. But Jim shook his head at that.
“Don’t leave the coats lying around here,” he warned. “That fellow may be back at any time, and we don’t want him to find the coats while we are up aloft.”