The Heroes of the School Part 11

"Thanks to all who voted for me," called Bart, as he made his way out past where Sandy stood.

"I'll get even with you!" growled Sandy. "You think you're the Czar of the school!"

"If you--" began Bart hotly, but Ned spoke:

"Don't pay any attention to him. You'll only get into trouble. It's all over. It was only a trick of Sandy's. He hasn't ten friends in the whole school."

CHAPTER X

A COW IN SCHOOL

The boys thronged from the court and out on the campus. There was a buzz of talk about what had taken place and Sandy came in for a severe "raking over the coals."

"What did you mean by saying he hurt Lem on purpose?" asked Newton Bantry, a member of the nine.

"You ask Sandy and maybe he'll tell you," replied Bart. "I'm sorry I said it, and I won't refer to it again. I may have been mistaken."

"I guess Sandy won't give us much chance to ask him anything," said Newton.

"Why?"

"Because he's going to leave school. I just heard him telling some of his cronies, those who were in the game with him. He says it's almost the end of the term, and he's going to work."

"Well it's small loss," put in Ned. "Though he's a good ball player when he wants to take the pains. The trouble is he's too fond of playing tricks."

There was no further dissension in the nine, and under Bart's leaders.h.i.+p it won several more games. The "Preps." challenged the boys again, but, though the high school boys did their best, they could not win. They were beaten by one run, but that was regarded as a great achievement against the redoubtable nine of older lads, and almost equivalent to a victory.

The weeks pa.s.sed, and the end of the school term came nearer.

Examinations were the order of the day, and the chums had little time to go off on trips along the river save on Sat.u.r.days. They made several excursions into the woods, and kept a lookout for the two queer men, but did not see them.

One day Ned went off alone in a search for the hut with the strange inscription. But he could not find it. Either he could not locate the place where he had seen it or the cabin had been moved.

"I'd like to get at the bottom of this," he murmured, as he tramped back home. "There's a method in the madness of those men, I'm sure."

But, if there was, Ned little dreamed what it portended.

"To-morrow's the last day of school this term," remarked Fenn, one afternoon as he and his chums strolled home. "My, but I'm glad of it!

Those exams., especially the algebra, nearly floored me. Lucky there's no more."

"Never mind," said Bart. "Forget it. We'll have a lot of sport to-morrow. We can cut up a bit and the teachers won't mind."

"That's so," spoke Ned. "I've got to do something. I can feel it in my bones! Whoop! It must be something worthy of the Darewell Chums!" He began to do an impromptu war dance.

"Don't get us into trouble," came from Frank.

"Trouble? Did I ever get you into trouble?"

"Oh, no," replied Bart sarcastically. "There wasn't any trouble when you put the live frogs in Miss Mapes's desk and scared her and all the other women teachers nearly into fits. There wasn't any trouble when you let a lot of mice loose in the girls' department. There wasn't any trouble when you brought Jimmy Dodger's pet c.o.o.n in and yelled that it was a skunk. We didn't get blamed for it all, did we? Oh, no, I guess not.

Say, Ned, if you're going to cut up, send in an advance notice that it's your own doings and none of ours."

"All right," responded Ned. "If I get up the scheme myself I'll take all the credit."

"You're welcome to it," spoke Frank. "The credit--and what comes after."

"Are you going to do anything?" asked Bart.

"Witness is not prepared to answer," was Ned's reply. "I may and I may not."

If Ned's chums could have seen him an hour later, talking to a farmer who lived about a mile outside of the town, they would have had grave suspicions regarding what he proposed to do to make the last day of school memorable.

The morning session of the last day pa.s.sed off quietly enough. There was not much done in the way of lessons. Some students arranged with their teachers to do some studying during vacation to make up "conditions,"

and others were consulting with the instructors about the work for next term.

Professor McCloud announced that the closing exercises would be held in the afternoon, the boys and girls a.s.sembling in the large auditorium on the second floor.

"I don't see that you're going to make good about that trick of yours,"

observed Fenn to Ned at the noon recess.

"Who said I was going to play any trick?"

"Why I thought--"

"The day isn't over yet," said Ned, with a wink.

At one o'clock the boys and girls gathered in the large hall. Ned's chums noticed he was not on hand, and they looked wonderingly at each other. There was no telling when or where Ned would break out.

A program of vocal and instrumental music was rendered and then came several recitations. It was while Jennie Smith was in the midst of a dramatic rendering of a poem telling of a maiden waiting and listening for the approach of her lover. She reached the lines:

"I feel his presence near me in the mystic midnight air I hear his footsteps coming, coming up the castle stair--"

At that moment there were, unmistakably, footsteps on the stair, only they were the stairs leading up from the court and not into a castle.

Heavy footsteps they were, not at all lover-like. Up and up they came, sounding like several men with heavy boots on. Jennie paused, as she stood on the platform, and listened. The steps came nearer.

An instant later the door, which was not closed tightly, was pushed open, and into the big auditorium, in front of the pupils ambled a gentle-eyed cow, that, giving one astonished look around, uttered a loud "Moo!"

CHAPTER XI

HONORING THE SENIORS

"Oh!" screamed Jennie, as she made a rush from the platform and fell in a faint just as Alice Keene caught her.