“Something important, you may be certain of that, or he wouldn’t be so secret about it.”
The two cadets walked to the roadway and then both stopped short and looked at each other. The same thought had occurred to each.
“We came for that clapper and we might as well have it,” declared Pepper. “I’ll go back and get it, Jack. You can rest behind the bushes, where nobody will see you.”
“All right—and I’ll watch out,—that nobody comes up to fasten that trap door again.”
“By jove! that’s so! Maybe the Ritter crowd is hanging around yet!”
“If they are, it was mighty mean of them not to come to my assistance when I was in peril of my life!”
“Maybe they were too scared and ran away.”
Jack found a convenient spot behind some bushes and Pepper disappeared once more inside the church. In less than ten minutes The Imp reappeared with both the bell clapper and the battered lantern.
“I shoved the broken glass into a corner with my foot,” he said. “And I pulled the rope back into the belfry. The lower end came loose easily when I pulled it up.”
“To be sure,” answered Jack. “A knot was caught in a crotch and that is why it held when the pull was downward. But come on, we’d better be getting back, or we’ll have trouble getting into the Hall.”