“Why, take it and use it.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I have another, but I shall not need it to-night.”
“Are you not going down to Cony’s with us?”
“I can’t. I am to relieve Henderson on post No. 8 at midnight; so you’ll have to go out and come in by Dick and me.”
That night everything passed off smoothly. The guards who held the floor when Tom and a chosen few went out and in, were accommodating; the bolt was easily worked by the aid of the wire Don had fashioned; the sentries on post No. 8 kept themselves out of sight; the pancakes and syrup were excellent; the night was passed in a most agreeable manner; and at three o’clock in the morning the guard-runners were all sleeping soundly in their beds, and no one was the wiser for what they had done. They missed Don (especially Tom Fisher, who had to pay his share of the bill from a very slender purse), whom they as well as Cony Ryan declared to be an honor to his class.
“It begins to look as though the old times were coming back again,” said Cony, as he sat by and saw his pancakes disappear before the attacks of his visitors, who ate as though they never had anything good served up to them at the academy. “I tell you the boys who went to school here years ago, some of whom are now men with boys of their own to look after, were a sharp lot. You couldn’t keep them in if they didn’t want to stay, and there was no use in trying. Of late you fellows haven’t done anything to be proud of; but perhaps this young Gordon will put some life into you.”
And he certainly did. Guard-running, in which Don took an active part, became of common occurrence, although the teachers never suspected it; and Cony Ryan slapped his well-lined pockets and blessed the day that brought Don Gordon to the Bridgeport academy. But the reckoning came at last, though long delayed, and Don, aided by an unexpected proceeding on the part of Tom Fisher, did something that raised him to a high place in the estimation of all the students, and knocked the “set” so high that it never came down again; at least it was never heard of afterward. It came about in this way:
Winter had passed, the snow had disappeared, the ice was all out of the river, the buds were starting on the maple trees, and those of the students who were ambitious to be something better than privates in their companies, were studying night and day to prepare themselves for the approaching examination. These found rest and recreation by whipping the neighboring brooks for trout on Saturday afternoon (you know it is time to begin trout-fishing when the maple buds start), while Tom Fisher and his followers diverted themselves by running the guard as often as the opportunity was presented.
On a certain night one of Tom’s friends who held one of the outside posts from eight o’clock until midnight, was taken suddenly ill, and was relieved by the corporal, his beat being taken by a boy who did not belong to the “set.” Tom had made arrangements for visiting Cony Ryan’s, and Don Gordon had charge of his floor. When taps had sounded, and the officer of the day had made his rounds, the guard-runners left their dormitories, one by one, Don turning his back so that he did not see them as they passed. They left the building without being discovered, but when they attempted to pass the sentry, their troubles began. They were halted, and by a voice that did not belong to the friend they had expected to find on that post. Amazed and disconcerted, they huddled together for a moment like a flock of sheep that had been suddenly frightened, and then, knowing that there was but one thing they could do, they turned and started for the academy on a dead run, the vigilant sentry all the while rending the air with his lusty calls for the corporal of the guard. They tumbled up the stairs, gained access to the floor on which their dormitories were situated, pulled off their uniforms without loss of time and went to bed, as miserable and frightened a lot of boys as the walls of that academy had ever inclosed.