“And you mean to say he used your uniform in stealing into the school?” asked Spouter.
“That’s it. I didn’t know it at the time, because he went to another part of the barn where I couldn’t see him. But later on, when he brought the uniform back, he told me all about it. He thought he had been wonderfully slick.”
“Why didn’t you expose him at once?” demanded Jack.
“He told me that if I exposed him he would tell the authorities that I had planned the whole scheme and that I had done most of the work myself. He said some one had seen him in the uniform scooting from one room to another, so that the report would circulate that some cadet was guilty. He got me so worked up that at last I promised to keep quiet.”
“And had he really robbed your room, too?” demanded Fred.
“Yes. I lost my stuff just as I reported. Oh, you can’t imagine how I felt!” went on Brassy Bangs in a hopeless tone of voice. “Many a time I thought I’d go to Colonel Colby and confess everything. But then I thought they would bring that old charge of barn-burning up against me, as well as the charge of helping in the robbery, and I didn’t have nerve enough to say a word. Oh, I know I was a big fool! I should have faced it out!”
“Wait a minute!” put in Jack suddenly. “Are you pretty sure Haddon, as well as Dusenbury and Jillson, are guilty of making off with the horses that are missing?”
“I am!”
“Well, then, isn’t it possible that those three went to this John Calder’s barn and stole some of the horses and then set fire to the place to cover the theft?”
“By golly, I’ll bet that’s just what they did!” burst out Brassy Bangs. “I remember now that the reports in the newspapers said the fire had been so fierce that the carcasses of the horses had been burnt up completely. They only found some of the bones in the ruins. Oh, if they really did do that!”