“What?”
“We’ll let ’em in now.”
“Wow! yes!” roared Texas. “An’ lick ’em when they git in. Whoop!”
“No,” laughed Mark, “that’s not what I mean. Let us go out by the other entrance.”
“Yes.”
“And don’t let ’em get out again.”
It was truly a fine idea. The more the delighted plebes thought of it the better they liked it. It would be far more exciting to trap the enemy than simply to keep them off. Even Parson Stanard was dancing about with delight. A few moments later the crowd was hurrying at full speed up the narrow tunnel toward “the back door.”
Whatever mystery that tunnel may have contained the plebes got no inkling of it. They did not stop to strike a light, but simply dashed wildly ahead in the darkness. Mark thought once that he felt a figure brush past him, but he scarcely gave it a thought. The party reached the rock at the end of the passage, pushed it hastily away, and after glancing about them, stole out and vanished in the woods.
As we know, the Seven had never used that entrance before, and, at first, they did not know just where they were. They ascertained, however, that the spot was on the hillside around to the south of the cliff. They were completely out of the view of the cadets, but the voices of the yearlings could be plainly heard.
“We’ve got quite a task,” Mark whispered to his companions. “We’ve got to manage to creep around where we can watch them and there hide.”