This was hard news indeed. Fights are so seldom interrupted, and the system is looked upon so eminently as a matter of course, that nothing but the most outrageous luck could have led to this catastrophe; and then to think of Graham's being the victim—Graham and his second—while the real aggressors had escaped scot-free!
"Not scot-free, either," said one lucky plebe, who had seen the battle and yet escaped capture—"not scot-free, by a long chalk. Mr. Woods got one Scotch lick he won't forget in a week." Whereat some of the group took heart and laughed; and then who should appear but the adjutant, Mr. Glenn.
"How is it, plebe—any damages?"
Geordie looked up through a fast-closing eye as he buttoned his jacket. "Hit pretty often, I guess, but I didn't notice it much at the time. What troubles me is that it's got Mr. Connell into the guard-house."
"Well, that's just what I've come to see you about," said Glenn. "Don't worry a particle. No one's more sorry you were caught than Mr. Allen himself, I'll bet. You've got to go to the guard-tent, but that's only for a few days. There's no dodging regulations, of course; but there you'll be let alone, and there'll be nobody to bother you. You've won the sympathy of the whole corps, and you did well, plebe." And here the adjutant put his hand on Geordie's shoulder. "That throw was tip-top!"
And then the assembled plebes would have been only too glad to give three cheers for the adjutant; but so big a gathering of the "animals" attracted the instant attention of their natural enemies, the yearlings, who swooped down to disperse the crowd, and the patrol came from the guard-tent, and with much show of severity the corporal directed Pops and Connell to fetch their blankets and come along.
And so, solemnly, the two culprits were marched away amid the subdued remarks of sympathy on every hand—even the group of elders about Ross—and in much better frame of mind than that magnate, for the orderly came at the moment to summon Mr. Glenn to the commandant's tent. That meant the colonel wanted his adjutant; and that probably meant that those cadets whom Allen had seen and recognized as participants in the forbidden fight were now to be placed in arrest.
Captures on the spot he had made but two—Geordie, breathless, bewildered, and half blind, and his second, Connell, who stood by his friend through thick and thin. All the others had scattered the instant the warning cry of the scouts was heard; First Class men and yearlings, veterans of such occasions, darting over the parapet and across the road and down the rocky, thickly-wooded steep towards the chain-battery walk, better known as "Flirtation;" while Mr. Allen, too dignified to run in pursuit, stumbled, as ill-luck would have it, on the men he least desired to come upon, if, indeed, he desired to capture any.
But he recognized both Ross and Jennings as they darted away, and saw them prominent in the ring. This meant jeopardy for two pairs of chevrons. Ross, slipping back to camp at the first opportunity, eagerly questioned Pops and Connell, who had been escorted thither by the officer. Had Mr. Allen asked them to name the others interested? He had; but, as became cadets, they declined to give their names. Glenn and Otis, the other two First Class men on the ground, had quietly retired among the trees in rear of them on hearing the alarm, and then made their way out of the gate as the Lieutenant took his helpless prisoners down the wooden stairway at the southeast angle. They had not been seen.
As for Allen's coming, it was accidental. Strolling with a friend from the hotel around the road that skirts the edge of the heights, he heard sounds from across the grassy parapet no graduate could mistake. A fight, of course! and having heard it, it was his duty to interfere. The next minute he was through the north gate and bearing down on the battle, when the outermost yearlings caught sight of his coming and gave the alarm.