"Oh, Andy! do you suppose old Lemon will really have them locked up?" questioned Fred anxiously, after being told of what was taking place below.
"I don't think he would dare to do it," announced Spouter.
"I move we all go down and take a hand in this!" cried Gif. "There is no fairness in letting Jack and Walt suffer for what we did."
Several other cadets had drifted in, those who had either been on the watch while the joke was being prepared or who had assisted in placing the sheets of ice on the floor and in the bed, and all agreed that the crowd had better stand together when it came to acknowledging what had been done.
"Forward march!" cried Gif, who, as a leader in athletics, took it upon himself to manage the affair. "Come on now—and no shirking!"
Braced up by numbers, all of the cadets fell in readily with this plan, and as a consequence there were ten boys led by Gif and the Rovers who marched down to the office.
"We'll enter by column of twos," announced Gif. "March in in regular military fashion," he added, and then knocked upon the office door.
Colonel Colby was doing what he could to question Jack and Walt on one hand, while trying to make Asa Lemm keep quiet on the other, when the others arrived. The master of the Hall was having no easy time of it, because Professor Lemm seemed to be growing more and more excited.
"I'll have the law on them, I tell you!" he cried. "They ought to go to state's prison for this!"
"Please be quiet just a minute, Professor," remonstrated Colonel Colby. Then came the knock on the door, and the colonel flung it open, not at all pleased over the interruption.