The fun, as well as the work, was all over now, and the students had nothing to do but walk about the room and wait as patiently as they could for the train that was to take them back to Bridgeport. It came at last, and in due time the tramp was handed over to the authorities to be tried for highway robbery, while Huggins was marched to his room to be kept there under guard until his father came to take him away. He was expelled from the school in general orders. Lester Brigham was punished for keeping so large an amount of money by him in violation of the regulations, and Don Gordon was looked upon as a hero. This hurt Lester more than anything else. He had come there with the fixed determination to supplant Don and Bert in the estimation of both teachers and students—to build himself up by pulling them down—and he was not a little disappointed as well as enraged, when he discovered that it was not in his power to work them any injury. He wrote a doleful letter to his father, complaining of the indignities that were constantly heaped upon him, and begging to be allowed to go home; but for once in his life Mr. Brigham was firm, and Lester was given to understand that he must make up his mind to stay at Bridgeport until the four years’ course was completed.
“I’ll show him whether I will or not,” said Lester, who was almost beside himself with fury. “He’ll have to let me go home. If Jones and the rest will stand by me, I will kick up a row here that will be talked of as long as the academy stands. I’ll show the fellows that Don Gordon isn’t the only boy in the world who has any pluck.”
In process of time Mr. Huggins came to the academy to look into the charges that had been made against his son, and when he went away, the deserter went with him. It was a long time before the boys knew what had become of him, for he left not a single friend at the academy, and there was no one who corresponded with him.
Things went smoothly after that. Of course there was some grand running, and a good deal of extra sentry and police duty to be performed by the idle and disobedient ones; but there were no flagrant violations of the rules—no more thefts or desertions. The malcontents were plucky enough to do almost anything, but they lacked a leader. There were no Don Gordons or Tom Fishers or Clarence Duncans among them. They had expected great things of Lester Brigham, but when they became better acquainted with him, they found that he was a boy of no spirit whatever. He talked loudly and spent his money freely, and his liberality brought him plenty of followers who were quick to discover all the weak points in his character. His insufferable vanity and self-conceit, his hatred of Don Gordon, his fondness for telling of the imaginary exploits he had performed both afloat and ashore—all these were seized upon by a certain class of boys who flattered him to his face, ate unlimited quantities of pancakes and pies at his expense and laughed at him behind his back. But the idea he had suggested to them—that of stealing a yacht and going off somewhere and having a picnic—was not forgotten. They talked about it at every opportunity; numerous plans for their amusement were proposed and discussed, and they had even selected the yacht in which they intended to make their cruise. Lester was, of course, the nominal leader, but Jones and Enoch Williams did all the work and laid all the plans.
The winter months passed quietly away, spring with its trout-fishing and pickerel-spearing came and went, and summer was upon them almost before they knew it. Now the students went to work in earnest, for the season of the annual camp and the examination that followed it, was close at hand. Even the lazy boys began to show some signs of life now, for they had heard much of the pleasures that were to be enjoyed during their month under canvas, and they were as anxious as the others to make a good showing in the presence of the strangers and friends who would be sure to visit them.
Lester Brigham would have looked forward to the camping frolic with the greatest eagerness and impatience if he had only had a corporal’s chevrons to wear; but he hadn’t, and if we might judge by his standing in his class, he was not likely to wear them, either.
“I’ll have to stand guard and be bossed around by that little whiffet of a Bert Gordon, who will throw on more airs than he deserves,” Lester often said to himself. “But I’ll not go to camp, if I can help it. If I do, I’ll not stay there long, for I will do something that will send me back to the academy under arrest.”
This was a part of Jones’s programme. The boys who were to steal the yacht and go to sea in her—there were twenty-eight of them in all—were to fall so far behind their classes that they would be ordered to remain at the academy to make up for lost time. If they did not succeed in accomplishing their object and were sent to camp against their will, they were to commit some offence that would cause them to be marched back under arrest. The boys growled lustily when this programme was marked out for them, and some of them flatly refused to follow it.
“As this is my first year at the academy I have never been in camp, and I should like to see what they do there,” said one. “Suppose those Mount Pleasant Indians should come in again? I shouldn’t like to miss that.”
“I don’t see any sense in waiting so long,” said another. “Why can’t we go now?”