"We've discovered the chaps who are responsible," said Ben, in triumph.
"They are Gus Plum and Nat Poole," asserted the senator's son. "Pop Swingly was throwing this stuff away in a hole back of the campus, when Plum and Poole came up. He heard them talking about playing a trick, but he didn't think they'd lower themselves by touching the mess. I suppose they thought that they were doing something quite smart."
"Dave's photo is gone," said Phil. "We have been hunting for it everywhere."
"You don't say! Dave, that is too bad."
"We ought to make Plum and Poole clean up this mess," came from Buster. "Let us try to capture them."
The suggestion met with instant approval, and the boys started to locate the bully and his crony. Plum and Poole were still below, but Shadow Hamilton announced that they were preparing to come up by a side stairs.
"We must get them, sure!" cried Dave. "I want that picture back, if nothing else."
Soon one boy, who was acting as a spy, announced the coming of Plum and Poole. The pair were allowed to reach the door of their dormitory, when they were pounced on from behind and made prisoners. They tried to escape, but the crowd was too many for them, and towels pulled down over their mouths kept them from raising an outcry.
"What's the meaning of this?" spluttered Nat Poole, when he found himself and his crony in dormitory No. 12, and with the door closed and locked.
"It means, in the first place, that I want my things back," said Dave, "and especially a photograph that was between my books."