“I was,” answered the detective. “Was that fellow I came pretty near running in last night on general principles one of your boys?”
“I can’t tell until you describe him,” said Bert.
“There was nothing wrong about his appearance, but I didn’t like the way he acted,” observed the detective. “He looked as though he had been up to something. He didn’t buy a ticket, and he took pains to board the train from the opposite side. He wore a dark-blue overcoat, Arctic shoes, seal-skin cap, gloves and muffler, and had something on his upper lip that looked like a streak of free-soil, but which, perhaps, on closer examination might have proved to be a mustache.”
“That’s the fellow,” said Bert. “Did he go toward Oxford?”
“He did. Do you want him? What has he been doing?”
“I do want him, for he is a deserter,” replied Bert. He said nothing about the crime of which Huggins was guilty. The superintendent had not told him to keep silent in regard to it, but he knew he was expected to do it all the same.
“Then I am glad I didn’t run him in,” said Mr. Shepard. “You boys always see plenty of fun when you are out after deserters. But you can’t take that big fellow alone. He’ll pick you up and chuck you head first into a snow-drift.”
“There are one or two fellows in that squad whom he can’t chuck into a snow-drift,” said Bert, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder toward the door.
The detective looked, and saw a party of students coming into the depot at double time. They were led by Captain (formerly Corporal) Mack, who, having been permitted to choose his own men, had detailed Curtis, Egan, Hopkins, and Don Gordon to form his squad. A long way behind them came the old German professor, Mr. Odenheimer, who was very red in the face and puffing and blowing like a porpoise. The fleet-footed boys had led him a lively race, and they meant to do it, too. They didn’t want him along, for his presence was calculated to rob them of much of the pleasure they would otherwise have enjoyed. He was jolly and good-natured when off duty, but still pompous and rather overbearing, and if Huggins were captured and Lester Brigham’s money returned to him, the honor of the achievement would fall to him, and not to Captain Mack and his men.