"Surely you don't think any of us was guilty?" cried Sam in sudden horror.
"I don't know what to think. The names, please."
"I—I think I'll have to refuse to give them, Captain Putnam."
"Of course all the boys who sleep in your dormitory were present?"
"I said I would take this all on my own shoulders, Captain Putnam. Of course, you know I wouldn't have confessed at all; but I don't wish to give that thief any advantage."
"Perhaps the person wasn't a thief at all, only some other cadet spying upon you."
"We thought of that."
"You may as well give me the names. I shall find them out anyway."
Hardly knowing whether or not he was doing right, Sam mentioned all of the cadets who had taken part in the feast. This list Captain Putnam compared with another containing the names of those who had been robbed.
"Thirty-two pupils," he mused. "I'll have the whole, school in this before I finish."