“Hello! What’s up?” exclaimed Tom.
“Something, evidently,” answered Phil.
“Have any of you fellows been cutting up?” asked Sid, with suspicious looks at his companions. They quickly entered denials.
Clearly there was something extraordinary in the meeting that had evidently been called, for the professors wore grave looks as they entered the residence of the head.
“I hope none of the ’varsity crowd has been misbehaving himself, and will get laid off the team,” went on Phil, who felt that he carried the weight of the eleven on his shoulders. “We’re in bad enough shape now.”
“Here comes Wallops, let’s ask him,” suggested Tom, and when the messenger approached they plied him with questions.
“I don’t rightly know what it is,” answered Wallops, “but it is something important and serious, so I heard Mr. Zane saying to Professor Tines, when he gave him word about the meeting. It has something to do with the title to the land on which the college is built. I believe some one has laid claim to it, on account of a cloud on the title, but I really don’t understand legal terms.”
“Do you mean that Randall College is in danger of losing some of the property?” gasped Phil, as he looked around at the fine campus, the athletic field, and the group of buildings.
“It’s something like that,” went on the messenger. “I heard Mr. Zane say the land might be taken by the heirs of some old man who once had a claim on it.”