"Continue to watch them, Crews, and tell Nixon to watch them, too. I will notify Professor Brice, and also Captain Dale." Captain Dale was the military instructor of the Academy.
Silas Crews hurried off, and Colonel Colby lost no time in notifying the others of what was taking place. As a result, a guard was established, which took cognizance of every move made by Slugger and Nappy. Why it was that Codfish was not with them, nobody knew. The fact was, the poor little sneak had been so terrified at the mere mention of doing anything further that he had burst out crying and locked himself in his room, stating that he was too sick to act.
Having obtained the bottle of ink and several cans of spoiled tomatoes, Slugger and Nappy watched their chance and visited the boiler-room under the school. Here they found a dozen large cans of ashes, and also an old empty soap-box.
"We'll fill the soap box half full of ashes," said Slugger, "and then we can place the opened-up cans of tomatoes and the opened-up bottle of ink on top. When we get the stuff over to Colonel Colby's rooms, we can spread half of everything around where it will make the best showing, then we can skip over to the offices and do the same thing, and after that we'll rush back and leave a little trail of ashes and some ink leading into the Rovers' rooms, and place the empty ink bottle and the empty cans in their closets and put the ash-box under one of the beds."
"Dandy!" replied Nappy. "Come on!"
Not knowing that Bob Nixon was watching them from a corner of the boiler-room, they soon had the box of ashes and other stuff ready. Then, watching their chance to see that the coast was clear, they sneaked up out of the boiler-room and then out of the school by a side door. Here a path led to the nearby building where Colonel Colby had his private suite of rooms.
"Now then, hurry up!" cried Nappy, who was beginning to show signs of nervousness.
They found the door to the main room unlocked, and both entered and set the box of stuff on one of the easy chairs. Then one took up the ink and the other an opened can of the decayed tomatoes.
"Now make a fine job of it," whispered Slugger.
Both took a step forward to start their nefarious work, when each was almost paralyzed by hearing Colonel Colby's voice.