The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest. Capwell Wyckoff

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СКАЧАТЬ 21,” answered Terry, innocently.

      “Why, that’s our room!” exclaimed Don.

      “Sure it is! I found out that the boy who was to room with you isn’t going to turn up, so I got it. I’ll bring my stuff over later on.”

      The boys were overjoyed at the prospect of being together and after an invigorating swim in Lake Blair they helped Terry fix up his corner of the dormitory room. After supper they had an hour to themselves and then they began to study. Just before warning and taps they were visited by a few friends.

      “Well Jim, how do you feel about what I said last night?” asked Don, as he got into bed.

      Jim yawned with enthusiasm. “Just as I told you, you win, hands down. I feel like a good sleep. That business of holding your little finger against the seam of your trouser and making your back as straight as a board is somewhat strenuous. But it certainly will straighten us up some, though I never could lay any claim to being the least bit round-shouldered. But I like the life here first rate. Let me have your pillow.”

      Before Don could reply Jim took his pillow and hurled it at Terry who, clad in a pair of blue pajamas, was staring out into the blackness of the night. The red-headed boy turned and looked grimly at Jim. Then he stooped down and scooped up the pillow.

      “Cut it out, you two,” ordered Don. “I hear that an Officer of the Day looks in on us every night at this time to see if everything is okay before the lights go out. I don’t want to get called down because I haven’t a pillow on my bed. Let’s have it, Terry.”

      The pillow was delivered through the air, with considerable force. Jim grumbled.

      “I just threw it at him to wake him up. What were you dreaming about then?”

      “I was just wondering about that old hall, and what is going on in there,” Terry replied, getting into bed.

      “Oh, to heck with that old hall!” snorted Jim. “Forget it!”

      A third classman, Officer of the Day, looked in the door and around the room. “Okay, gentlemen,” he said quietly and withdrew. The lights went out suddenly. For a minute all was silent. Then, from Terry’s bed:

      “Forget nothing! There is something wrong there, and I’d like to find out what it is!”

      CHAPTER 3

      Disturbing News

      A week passed and the boys settled without difficulty into the routine life of Woodcrest Military Institute. They began to enjoy their classes and the drill, which each day seemed to become less burdensome and rigorous. In the afternoons they reported for track work. The evening, while mostly devoted to study, gave them plenty of time for visiting friends and having some good wholesome fun, and at the week’s ending they found that they thoroughly enjoyed their life at the institute.

      Colonel Morrell had not as yet appeared at the academy and the boys from Maine were anxious to see him. No one seemed to know precisely what the trouble was, and even Major Tireson seemed to have something on his mind. Not that the routine was at all broken by the colonel’s absence. Things went along as smoothly as they did when the headmaster was present, and aside from a few statements of wonder, expressed by the cadets, nothing was thought about the matter until one evening during their second week at school.

      Don and Jim had gone to their room and had been studying for about fifteen minutes when Terry burst into the room.

      “What’s the big rush?” asked Jim, looking up from his book with a slight frown.

      “You guys heard the news?” Terry blurted out. “Of course you haven’t, or you wouldn’t be sitting there calmly studying.”

      “We haven’t heard anything but your mad rush in the door,” said Don, laying down his book. “Suppose you tell us what’s up?”

      “What do you think? Our colonel has disappeared!”

      “What?” cried the Mercer boys, in a breath.

      Terry bounced onto the bed. “Yes, sir. The news leaked out tonight. I didn’t get all of the details, but he was on his way down here and suddenly disappeared. Just vanished into thin air, if Colonel Morrell could do that. I’ve heard he is pretty husky, so maybe he didn’t just float away, but he’s gone!”

      “Where did you hear this?” inquired Don, study forgotten.

      “Down at the office. I went down there to get some supplies and a detective was talking to Major Tireson. The detective talked in a loud voice, and three or four of us heard every word he said. The colonel’s brother hired detectives and they are searching for him. Major Tireson was saying that he had received a telegram from Colonel Morrell just before he left for the school here, and that was all that he knew. From the expression on the major’s face I could see that he didn’t want us to know it and would like to have kept it quiet, but it’s out now.”

      Before the boys could reply to this astonishing piece of news a knock sounded on the door and a moment later Rhodes, Merton and Chipps came in. The three upper classmen had become quite friendly with the fourth class men during their short period of time at the school and were in the habit of dropping in evenings to talk over school topics with them. It was evident that the same subject was on their minds.

      “Well,” remarked Rhodes after one look at their faces. “I see you fellows have heard the news, too.”

      Jim nodded. “Yes, we have, and we’re terribly sorry to hear it, too. Terry was down in the office and heard it there.”

      “You’d be even sorrier if you knew the colonel as we do,” put in Cadet Merton, seating himself on Jim’s bed. “Charlie, here, has the latest. Tell them about it, Rhodes.”

      “The major called in the cadet captains,” began Rhodes. “And he told us the news. I don’t think he would have allowed the cadet body to know what had happened if some of the boys hadn’t heard it in the office. He told us to keep things running in our respective classes much the same as usual, and he was confident that everything would turn out all right in the end. The details are these: Colonel Morrell started for the school here last Wednesday, on the afternoon train. He lives up in Rockwood, New York, and he should have arrived at Portville at about seven o’clock. He had previously wired the major that he would be here at that time, so he was expected. We fellows didn’t know it, and of course it wasn’t until the last couple of days that we began to notice that he wasn’t here and to wonder why. The major must have been looking for him all the while, but he kept it to himself, although he told us that he was very much worried. He felt that if the cadets didn’t know anything about it, it would be better.

      “As I said, the colonel started for here on the afternoon train, and he was supposed to come straight through. But for some unexpected reason he did not. Instead, he got off at a way station about sixteen miles from here, a little village called Spotville Point, and from that time to the present he hasn’t been seen! At least, not by anyone who ever told of it. The conductor on the train remembers that he got off there and that he had either a letter or a telegram in his hand, and that was the last ever heard of him. His brother wrote to him once or twice and then learned from Major Tireson that he hadn’t arrived here, so he got the police and detectives into action at once, so far without any result. That’s the whole story, and it’s a very queer one.”

      “A queer one, and a distressing СКАЧАТЬ