“Oh, no we won’t,” answered Tom, confidently. “Don’t you be at all uneasy on that score. Duncan and I will stand by you. Come on, now; the boys are all ready and waiting.”
“How fearful dark it is,” said Don. “I can’t see my hand before me.”
“Neither can I; but I have been through here so often that I know every step of the way. Give me your hand.”
Fisher took Don in tow and succeeded in conducting him safely down two flights of stairs—it afterward proved to be a fortunate thing for Don that he remembered that—and out into the yard where Duncan and the rest were waiting for them. After greeting Don in the most cordial manner they moved off in a body toward the north corner of the grounds—all except Tom Fisher, who went on ahead to notify the sentry of their approach. This he did in some mysterious way, and without alarming any of the guards on the neighboring posts; and the boy, who ought to have called the corporal of the guard at once, went into his box and stayed there until Tom and his companions had crossed his beat and were out of sight. They easily found the place where two of the tall fence pickets had been loosened at the bottom, and pushing these aside they crept through the opening into the road.
“Well, Gordon, that wasn’t such a very hard thing to do, was it?” said Duncan, as he took off his overcoat and shook the snow out of it.
“No,” answered Don, “and I don’t see much fun in it, either. It is not a very smart thing to crawl by a sentry who is accommodating enough to keep out of sight until you have had time to get out of harm’s way. There’s no excitement in it—anybody could do it. If that guard had been faithful to his trust, I should think we had done something worth bragging about.”
“O, you want excitement, do you?” exclaimed Duncan. “You want a chance to run by some spooney who would be only too glad to report you and get you into a row, don’t you? All right. We’ll see that you get the chance, and very shortly, too; won’t we, boys?”
“Yes,” replied all the boys, in concert.
“And, unless I am very badly mistaken, you will see quite as much excitement as you want to-night,” added Duncan, to himself. “If Dick Henderson does his duty, you will be under arrest and a candidate for a court-martial before you see the inside of your dormitory again.”
During the walk to the big pond, near which Cony Ryan’s house stood, Don’s new friends entertained him with many thrilling stories of the deeds of daring that had been performed by themselves and former students, such as running the guard when all the posts were occupied by those who were not friendly to them; stealing the bell-rope when the cupola was guarded by some of the best soldiers in the academy; turning the bell upside down on a cold night, filling it with water and allowing it to freeze solid; and spiking the gun whose unwelcome booming aroused them at so early an hour every morning. As Don listened he began to grow excited; and when there was a little lull in the conversation, he proposed one or two daring schemes of his own that had suddenly occurred to him, and which were so far ahead of any his auditors had ever engaged in, that they could hardly believe he was in earnest.