“I don’t know. He seemed to be a very nice man, though. He was in a great hurry. You had better not keep him waiting. He said it was very important,” and without waiting to be questioned further, Spouter hurried away.
Codfish looked after the other cadet rather doubtfully, and stood still for a moment. Then, however, his curiosity got the better of him, and he hurried off in the direction of the Hall.
“Come on, fellows!” cried Jack in a low voice. “But don’t let him suspect that you are following him, or it may spoil the fun.”
Stowell entered the school by a side door and ran up the nearest stairway to the main corridor above. The others hastened around to the front entrance and came up by another staircase. They were just in time to see the sneak hurrying into the room he occupied.
“Hist!” came in a low voice from the other end of the corridor, after the door had closed upon Codfish, and then from a shadowy recess Andy and Randy appeared.
“Did you get everything fixed up?” questioned Jack hurriedly.
“All fixed,” answered Andy laconically. “Come on in here,” and he motioned to a room next to that occupied by Stowell. This belonged to a student who, for the time being, was away from the school.
Once inside of this room, Randy and Andy took the others to where there was a door connecting that apartment with the one occupied by the sneak. This was partly open, so that they could look into Stowell’s room with ease.
“Hello there!” they heard the sneak exclaim. And then followed the switching on of an electric light. “It’s only one of their rotten jokes! I knew it all along!” murmured the cadet.
He looked around the room, and then a cry of astonishment burst from his lips. In the center of the floor were piled at least ten boxes of various sizes and shapes. Some of the boxes had had straw in them and others excelsior, and part of this was strewn on the floor.