“Certainly not—and we won’t be. This work is to be done in the dark and while we are disguised. At the first alarm we can skip. But I don’t look for any alarm,” concluded Ritter.
It was well that Andy and Pepper pretended to go to bed with the others, for Ritter and his cohorts were on the watch.
“I told you the coast would be clear,” said Ritter. “All the same, I guess we had better lay low until about midnight.”
It was nearly eleven when Andy and Pepper arose, donned their clothing, and taking their shoes in their hands, stole from the dormitory and crept downstairs to a side door of the Hall. Nobody saw them, and in a moment more they were walking rapidly over the school grounds in the direction of the lake.
“This may be a fool’s errand after all,” said Pepper. “But it is better than running the risk of having somebody injure the sloop.”
“We should have come armed,” returned his chum. “Anybody who would injure a boat just before a race ought to be shot.”
“We’ll arm ourselves when we get down to the boathouse.”
Reaching the building, they went inside and procured some old hockey sticks that chanced to be handy. Then they entered a rowboat at the dock and poled over to the Alice. Clambering aboard, they tied the rowboat to the stern. As chance would have it, the gentle breeze that was blowing sent the small craft around to the lake side of the sloop, so the rowboat was not visible from the shore.
The two cadets had put in rather a strenuous day and were consequently sleepy. They wanted to get what rest they could for the morrow and so decided to watch by turns, two hours at a stretch. It was a clear night, with countless stars overhead, and the day for the great race promised to be all that could be desired.
The Alice had a little cuddy, just large enough to accommodate two, and into this the boys crawled, to get out of the night air, which was damp. Andy was the first to rest, while Pepper sat up, his eyes trained on the dimly-lit shore.