"Roger, I want to tell you something," said Dave, and as the pair walked to a secluded corner of a hallway Dave told his chum what had been on his mind since the visit to the lonely cabin.
"Oh, Dave! can this be true?" cried the senator's son, in horror. "Can Jasniff and Plum really be mixed up in this?"
"It looks like it to me, Roger," was Dave's slow reply. "And yet I shouldn't want to say a word until I was certain. Jasniff I know is bad,—and so is Plum, for the matter of that. But there is a difference between them."
"I know it, Dave. Jasniff is wicked at heart, while Gus is more a bully and headstrong." The senator's son paused. "What do you propose to do?"
"I've been thinking of having a straight talk with Plum. Of course, if he is really in with those robbers I'll have to expose him."
The chums talked the matter over for several minutes and then went in to breakfast. Plum was there, but Dave noticed that the bully ate little. Soon Plum arose and left the dining room abruptly. Dave followed, why he could hardly tell. But he had a feeling that he must follow Plum then and there.
The bully of Oak Hall passed from the hall to the coat room, and there donned his overcoat, hat, and rubbers. Then he walked to a side door, and opening it cautiously, stepped out into the howling storm.
Dave was now certain something unusual was in the wind, for the school session would begin in twenty minutes and he knew Plum would not go out in such a storm without good reason. Quickly he donned his own coat, hat, and rubbers and followed to the outside of the school building. He saw Plum running across the campus and he followed. Then the bully leaped the boxwood hedge and came out on a road leading to a village called Bagor, a short distance from Rockville.
"Perhaps he is going to meet Jasniff," Dave reasoned. "He must be pretty well upset. I don't believe he even got permission to leave."