“Did you ever hear of anything so very unfortunate?” whispered Fisher to his friend Duncan. “If there was any one of our fellows except Gordon in charge of this floor, we should be all right, for it is as dark as a pocket out of doors, and I know that that sentry could not have recognized us.”
“We ought never to have had anything to do with Gordon in the first place,” whispered Duncan, in reply.
“That’s what I have thought for a long time; but it is too late to mend the matter now. There they are,” he added, as the sound of footsteps on the stairs came to their ears. “It is all over with us now.”
So thought Don Gordon, only he used the word “me” instead of “us.” “I am in for it,” he soliloquized, “and I would give something to know what they will do with me. I’ll not go back on the boys, and that’s flat. The superintendent will give me a lively shake-up, of course; and then what will Bert say? What will mother think?”
When the officer of the day, attended as usual by the corporal, came up the stairs, he found Don pacing slowly along the hall with his hands behind his back. They returned his salute, but did not speak to him. They went to the upper end of the hall and began a thorough examination of all the rooms, the officer of the day arousing the occupant of every bed, while the corporal held his lantern aloft so that the face of each one could be plainly seen. Don’s dummy would not have saved him this time. When they had satisfied themselves that no one on that floor was missing, and had tried the door opening into the hall that led to the fire-escape, they went up the stairs to look into the dormitories on the floors above. In a quarter of an hour they went back to the guard-room, and Don was left alone. Scarcely had the sound of their footsteps died away in the lower hall when a dozen doors were softly opened, and almost twice as many heads were thrust cautiously out. “What’s the row, Gordon?” was the whispered chorus that saluted Don’s ears. “What did the officer of the day wake us up for? Anybody out?”
“There’s no one out who belongs on this floor,” replied Don. “And if there has been anything going on up stairs, I don’t know it.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Not a word![word!]”
The students were all surprised to hear this, and there were some among them who were frightened as well. After a few more questions, which brought no information from Don for the simple reason that he had none to impart, the students all went back to bed except Fisher and Duncan, who lingered to have a word with Don in private. They were ill at ease, and told themselves that when the new fastenings were put on the doors, some new routine had been adopted of which they had not yet heard.
“Didn’t he ask you any questions at all—not a single one?” whispered Fisher.