“Oh, we’ve arranged for that. Snail and Holly took pains to converse, rather loudly, in Mr. Zane’s hearing to-night, though they pretended not to see him. They intimated that they might try to sneak in about eleven o’clock.”
“Then the trick comes off then?” asked Phil.
“Exactly. We’ve got half an hour yet.”
The students sat and talked of many things while waiting, chiefly baseball, until a slight vibration of the wire and a tug of the cord warned them that the time for action had arrived. Dutch explained that he had arranged a code of signals with his chums so that he knew when to haul in on the cord which would pull the stuffed figure along the wire.
“There it goes!” he whispered finally. “Now watch the fun!”
He began to haul, and the sagging of the wire told of a weight on it. Listening, as they peered from the window into the darkness, Tom and his friends could hear some one running across the campus. Then came a challenge.
“Stop, if you please, sir! I see you, and it is useless to try and sneak into college at this hour! I demand your name, sir!”
“That’s Zane!” whispered Phil.
A moment later the wire was violently agitated.
“He’s caught him!” exclaimed Dutch. “Why don’t they turn on the light, so he can see it’s only a stuffed scarecrow?”