“Your father!” exclaimed Tom, in great surprise. “Did he ever attend this school?”
“Yes; he received a military education and prepared for college here.”
“I am surprised to hear it. Well, he didn’t get through the whole course without being hauled up occasionally, did he? I just know he didn’t, if he was a boy who had any spirit in him. Now, as I may not see you again until the time for action arrives, I want to know if you understand just what you have to do.”
Don answered that he was sure he did, and then went on to repeat the instructions he had received in the gymnasium. When he had finished, Fisher gave him an approving wink and nod, and left him.
During the evening Don and Bert did very little studying. The latter took his punishment very much to heart; and asked himself over and over what his mother would think when she heard of it; while Don was so busy thinking of the festivities that were to come off at Cony Ryan’s, that he could not have concentrated his mind on his books if he had tried. When taps were sounded the light went out instanter.
“I shall never get into trouble for that again,” said Don, as he tumbled into bed, after bidding his brother good-night. “The next time I am reported, it will be for something that is worth reporting.”
Don began to be excited now. He had been instructed to wait twenty minutes, as near as he could guess at it, in order to give the officer of the day time to make his rounds, which he did as often as the huge bell in the cupola tolled the hours. He knew when the officer ascended the stairs, heard him talking with the sentry who had charge of that floor, and breathed easier when he went down again—but only for a moment, for now something that appeared to be an insurmountable obstacle arose before him all on a sudden. The sensitive Bert was sadly troubled, and when he got that way, it was almost impossible for him to go to sleep. In case he remained awake until the expiration of the twenty minutes, what could Don do?
“I never thought of that,” soliloquized the latter, his ears telling him the while that Bert was tossing restlessly about on his bed. “It would be simply impossible for me to get up and dress and slip out of the room without his knowledge. Of course I might go out openly and above board, for I know that he would never blow on me; but if I do that, he will improve every opportunity to lecture me, and I would rather spend every Saturday afternoon in walking extras than listen to him. I ought to have told the fellows to allow me at least an hour.”
While Don was busy with such reflections as these, and trying in vain to conjure up some plan for leaving the room without attracting his brother’s attention, he was electrified by a gentle snore which came from the direction of Bert’s bed. Don thought it was a pleasant sound to hear just then, for it told him that the way was clear. In an instant he was out on the floor, and in five minutes more he was dressed. After wrapping one of his pillows up in the quilts and arranging them as well as he could in the dark, so that they would bear some resemblance to a human figure, he walked across the room with noiseless steps and cautiously opened the door. The hall was lighted up by a single gas-burner, under which the sentry, Charley Porter, sat reading a book. He looked up when he heard Don’s door grating on its hinges; but he did not look Don’s way. He turned his eyes in the other direction. Then he laid down his book, got upon his feet, and walking leisurely along the hall with his hands behind his back, took his stand in front of a window, and looked out into the darkness. His back was turned toward Don, who closed the door of his room behind him, moved along the hall on tip-toe, and dodging around an angle in the wall, was quickly out of sight. A few hurried steps brought him to another door, which yielded to his touch, and then Don found himself in utter darkness.
This door gave access to the back stairs, which ran from the ground floor to the upper story of the building, and were intended to be used only as a fire-escape. The doors that opened into it—there was one on each floor—were kept locked, and all the keys that rightfully belonged to them were hung up on a nail in the superintendent’s room, where they could be readily found by the teachers in case circumstances required that they should be brought into use. The superintendent was happy in the belief that by placing a sentry in charge of the dormitories on each floor, and keeping the keys of these doors under his eye all the time, he had put it out of the power of any student to leave the building during the night; but he had not taken into consideration the fact that sentries may sometimes prove false to their duty, and that an old rusty key, picked up in the yard, can, by the aid of a file and a little ingenuity, be made to fit almost any lock. Tom Fisher and his friends all had keys that would open these doors, and Don had resolved that he would have one too.