“You’ve got us into a pretty pickle all the same,” retorted Enoch. “It is bad enough to fool a lot of men; but when it comes to sailing under false colors before a party of girls—Endicott, you ought to have had better sense. If anything leaks out, those big, strapping firemen will make mince-meat of us.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Lester and Jones, in a breath; and even Endicott looked rather sober.
“But we mustn’t let anything leak out,” said he. “The boys have kept still tongues in their heads so far, and why should they begin to blab now, when we are in the very midst of danger?”
“There’s just this much about it,” said Enoch, without replying to Endicott’s question. “I shall hold myself in readiness to dig out at the very first note of warning, and my advice to you and the rest of the fellows is to do the same. The punishment the first-class boys will visit upon us, if they get the chance, won’t be a patching to the pounding we shall get from these Yahoos if they discover that they and their girls have been duped. I didn’t feel any great uneasiness before, but I tell you I shall be on the alert now.”
There were some very badly frightened boys among the conspirators when Endicott’s indiscretion became known, and Enoch thought they looked more like a lot of hunted criminals than anything else to which he could compare them. The majority of them could not bear to remain inactive in the dining-room, so they went out on the street, where they could have a fair chance to take to their heels should occasion seem to require it; but some of the sharpest of them, such fellows as Lester, Enoch and Jones, and their particular friends Barry, Dale and Morris, thought that headquarters, that is the dining-room, was the safest place for them. They knew that if any of the first-class boys sent a telegram to Mr. Taylor it would be brought straight to the hotel, and they wanted to make sure that he didn’t get it. Colonel Mack, as we know, did send a dispatch to Mr. Taylor, but it did not in any way interfere with the plans of the conspirators, because it came too late. The interruption to their little programme came from a different source altogether.
It happened about two hours after they reached Bordentown. The most of the students were strolling about the village to see what they could find that was worth looking at; the firemen had scattered in all directions to hunt up girls for the hop; and Enoch and the boys whose names we have mentioned above were walking up and down the dining-room, watching Mr. Taylor and his assistants, who were busily engaged in placing a tempting array of viands upon the tables, when suddenly the shrill scream of a locomotive whistle—a triumphant scream that had a volume of meaning in it—rent the air. An instant later the door was dashed violently open, and a pale and excited student, whose intense alarm seemed to have robbed him of all his senses, rushed in, shouting at the top of his voice:
“Oh, boys, there’s the very mischief to pay! Here come Blake and a whole crowd of fellows! Get out o’ this quick. They are talking with some of the firemen.”
This startling announcement was enough to frighten anybody. It even took away the last particle of Enoch’s courage. He stood as motionless as if he had grown fast to the floor, while Mr. Taylor and his assistants paused with their hands full of dishes and looked at one another. Enoch was the first to recover himself and to think of escape. The burly form of the caterer was interposed between himself and the door, and as the boy did not dare attempt to pass him, he turned and made a dash for the nearest window, his example being followed by all his companions. This retrograde movement aroused Mr. Taylor, and at the same time opened his eyes to the fact that he had been very neatly taken in. Slamming down the dishes he held in his hands, he called out, in angry tones:
“Stop those boys! Catch the captain; he is at the bottom of it all.”
Mr. Taylor started forward to obey his own order; but he was slow as well as heavy, while Enoch was like a cat in his movements. As quick as a flash he threw up the window, and dropping lightly to the ground, made off at an astonishing rate of speed. He was out of sight in an instant.