CHAPTER XXVII
TOM IS KIDNAPPED
For a moment Tom looked at Sid. The same thought was in both their minds.
"Had we better tell Dutch?" asked Tom.
"It wouldn't be a bad plan."
"All right, I'll let him know. If Gladdus and his crowd find out our plans they'll spoil 'em."
So Tom hastened after Dutch Housenlager and related the finding of the matchbox and the suspicion engendered by it—that Gladdus had been listening in the hall.
"All right," remarked Dutch. "We'll change our plans a bit. I'll see you later."
Tom and Sid did not feel like resuming their studies after what had happened. Instead they sat talking of the prospective dinner, Sid stretched lazily at full length on the sofa, while Tom luxuriously sprawled in the easy chair.
"I tell you what it is, old man," said Sid, "it's mighty comfortable here, don't you think?"
"It sure is."
"And to think that next term we'll have to go into the west dormitory," went on Sid. "We'll be bloomin' sophs then. At least you will."
"That's very nice of you to say so, but what about yourself?"
"I'm not so sure," and Sid spoke dubiously. "That confounded Latin will be the death of me. I tell you what it is. I was never cut out for a classical scholar. Now, if they had a course of what to do on first base, I'd be able to master it in, say, a four years' stretch. But I'm afraid I'll go the way of our mutual acquaintance Langridge, and spend two years as a freshman, at which rate I'll be eight years getting through college."
"Oh, I hope not. You stand better than Langridge. He's smart—not that you aren't—but he doesn't get down to it. It's just like his baseball practice, if he would only"
Then Tom stopped. He didn't want to talk about the player whom he was trying to supplant on the nine. "Well," he finished, "I guess I'll turn in. We'll have to see Dutch in the morning and learn what the new plans are."
Housenlager and his fellow members of the freshman dinner committee found it advisable to make a change after what Sid and Tom had discovered.
"But we can't alter the time or place of the feed," explained Dutch. "It's too late to do that Anyway, there's no danger once we get inside the hall, for we've arranged to have the doors bolted and braced and guards posted. The only danger is that they'll get at some of us before we get to the place or that they'll get at the eating stuff in some way and put it on the blink."
"I shouldn't think there'd be much danger of that," spoke Tom. "Won't the man who is going to supply it look out for that end?"
"I s'pose he will," admitted Dutch, "so the main thing for us to do is to see that we get safely to the hall. I think we'd better not meet down near the bridge, as I proposed first. You know, we were all going in a body. I think now the best way will be for us to stroll off by ones and twos. Then there won't be any suspicion. The sophs will be on the watch for us, of course, but I think we can fool them."
"Then you mean for each one of us to get to the hall as best he can?" asked Sid.
"That's it," replied Dutch.
"Some fellows did that one year," put in Ford Fenton, "but the sophs caught them just the same. My uncle says"
He paused, for the group of lads about him, as if by prearranged signal, all put their hands over their ears and all began talking at once loudly.
"Hu!" ejaculated Ford. "You think that's funny, I guess."
"Not as funny as what your uncle might have said," remarked Sid, who some time previously had planned to have his chums give this signal of disapproval the moment Ford mentioned his relative.
"Well, I guess it's all understood," went on Dutch. 'We'll have a sort of go-as-you-please affair until we get to the hall in Haddonfield."
"I hear Langridge isn't coming," said Ford.
"Who told you?" asked Sid.
"Why, he did. I asked him if he was going to be on hand, and I told him about a dinner where my uncle said"
"I guess he doesn't want to come because he is afraid your uncle will be there," declared Tom with a good-natured laugh.
"More likely because the dinner isn't going to be sporty enough for him," was the opinion of Dutch. "Well, we don't want anybody that doesn't want to come. But I've got to go and at tend to some loose ends. Now mind, mum's the word, fellows, not only as regards talk, but don't act so as to give the sophs a clue. See you later," and he hurried off.
Few in the freshman class did themselves justice in recitations that day from too much thinking about the fun they would have at the dinner that night. Even Tom fell below his usual standard, and as for Sid, his rendering of Virgil was something to make Professor Tines (who was a good classical scholar, whatever else he might be) shudder in anguish. But Sid didn't mind.
"I tell you what it is, old man," spoke Sid to Tom that evening as they prepared to leave for the spread, "we'd better go it alone, I think."
"Just what I was about to propose. If we leave here together, some sneaking soph will be sure to spot us. Will you go first or shall I?"
"You'd better take it first. There's a hole in one of my socks I've got to sew up. I never saw clothes go the way they do when a laundry gets hold of 'em."
"Can you darn socks?"
"Well, not exactly what you'd call darn," explained Sid. "I just gather up a little of the sock where the hole is and tie a string around it. It's just as good as darning and twice as quick. I learned that from a fellow I roomed with at boarding school. But go ahead, if you're going."
It was quite dark now and Tom, after a cautious look around the entrance of the dormitory, to see if any sophomores were lurking about, stole silently down toward the river. He intended to take the road along the stream, cross the bridge and board a trolley for Haddonfield, which plan would be followed by a number of the freshmen.
Tom was almost at the bridge when he saw a number of dark shadows moving about near the structure.
"Now, are they sophs or our fellows?" he mused as he cautiously halted. He thought he recognized some of his classmates and went on a little further.
"Here comes one!" he heard in a hoarse whisper.
Tom stopped. It was so dark he could not tell friends from foes. But he knew a test. A countersign had been agreed upon.
"What did the namby-pamby say?" he asked.
Back came the answer in a hoarse whisper:
"Over the fence is out!"
It was the reply that had been arranged among the freshmen. Confident that he was approaching friends, Tom advanced. A moment later he found himself clasped by half a dozen arms.
"We've got one!" some one cried, and he recognized the voice of Gladdus. "Take him away, fellows, and wait for the next. I guess the freshies won't have so many at their spread as they think!"
"Kidnapped!" thought Tom disgustedly as he was hustled away in the darkness. "Now they'll have the laugh on me and some of the other fellows all right. They have discovered our countersign or else some one gave it away."