He must keep his head and work rationally. There were only two means of exit: the door and the four slatted windows. Again he shook the door, not wildly, but listening critically. Perhaps he could pick the lock.
Eagerly he felt in his pockets for his knife and buttonhook. Only a crumpled handkerchief, a pencil, a soft package of butterscotch, and a ball of twine rewarded his efforts. The door was now out of the question. What in heck had become of his knife? Had those fellows purposely stripped him of everything so he couldn’t possibly get out? To do them justice, however, he supposed they didn’t know about the ringing of the bell for the rouser, and probably intended him to be secure until after the game.
One, two; one, two, chimed the library clock. Four-fifteen! Nothing accomplished yet.
“If I could get the slats broken, and then lean out of the window and yell for help,” he said, half aloud.
A squeak on the stairs outside of the door caught his ear. “Wonder if they left a guard around,” he thought. “If I yelled, they would only come in and gag me; and that would make things worse than they are now. My only hope, a forlorn one at that, is to attract the attention of someone in order to let the fellows know where I am, and come to rescue me.”
But how?
Covering his face with his hands, he crouched on the floor, in deep thought.
One, chimed the library clock, marking the half hour. Anxiously Jack glanced up at the heavy bell above him. Perhaps he could unfasten the clapper, and flatten himself on the floor so that the bell would only graze him as it swung to and fro. Then, when no sound came from the belfry, somebody might investigate. But no; old Jake, who attended to the bell ringing, was too lazy to climb all those stairs to repair the bell for a mere rally. He’d just let it go until some time tomorrow. By that time, the team would have left without him!
The tickets he had promised Patricia were lying home on his desk. Wonder what she thought when he failed to keep his promise to give them to her in Shakespeare class.
Tut’s friends would probably pass around the word that Jack had taken the bribe and disappeared. That would be his finish in athletics. Jack groaned aloud, and pulled his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe off the cold perspiration which dampened his face. Tut had always been jealous of him; and since he had refused, a few weeks ago, to work for Jim’s election as Chairman of the Soph Hop, Tut had positively disliked him. Jack did not approve of the bargaining for honors, which went on at the college, but doggedly supported whatever man he thought best fitted for the job, politics notwithstanding—a practice which had not made him any too popular with certain ambitious ringleaders.