Room F was one of the larger recitation rooms in Oxford, a rectangular, high-ceilinged apartment, with tall windows along one side and a dismal expanse of blackboard occupying most of the remaining wall space. There were some thirty seats, and a small platform at one end supported a desk and chair. On Wednesday, at a few minutes before three in the afternoon, Room F was well filled and the corridor outside was noisy with the sound of voices and the tramping of feet. The First and Third Classes were holding or were about to hold their elections in neighboring rooms, and there was quite a little excitement in the air. It was the Second Class election, however, that aroused the most interest. Usually the elections are cut-and-dried affairs, but Dan’s appearance in the race had raised the contest out of the humdrum level, and even Second Class fellows who were not Cambridge members had caught the excitement[71] and were waiting in the corridors to learn the result.

“First elects Rand and Derrick,” announced Arthur Thompson, entering the room. “Isn’t it time to start things here, fellows?”

“It’s only two minutes of three,” objected Hiltz, who was doing a little final electioneering over by the windows.

“Then your watch is slow,” retorted Arthur. “First’s closed her polls and counted. What time have you got, Lowd?”

“Three-four.”

“Then let’s get busy. Is Chambers here?”

“Here and waiting,” answered Joe. “Got your slips ready?”

“They’re on the desk there, aren’t they? They were there when I came in.”

“I’ve got them. Gentlemen, the polls are open. Please write the names of two candidates and your own name on the slips, fold, and then hand them to me.”

The fellows crowded up for the slips of blank paper and then retired to the seats to prepare their ballots. Chambers took his seat at the desk and laid the roster of voters’ names open in front of him. As usual pencils and pens were scarce and had to be handed around from one to another.[72] Arthur sought Dan where the latter was filling out his ballot on a window ledge.

“Are all your fellows here, Dan?” he whispered.

“I think so. I thought I’d check them off from Chambers’s list as they voted.”

“I suppose that’s the best. If they wouldn’t keep moving around so we could check them off now. Jake was trying to get Lowd back into the fold awhile ago; did you notice? But I guess he didn’t succeed, for I heard Lowd tell him to run away!”

One by one the voters handed their folded slips to Joe Chambers and gave their names. Joe laid the ballots in an open drawer at his side and crossed off the voter’s name on the roster, announcing it aloud as he did so. Both Dan and Arthur got their votes in early, and Hiltz was only a minute behind them. Then the first two, who had drawn apart to watch and confer, noticed excitement in the Hiltz camp. Hiltz compared the list he held with that on the desk, searched the room with his gaze, talked vehemently with one of his supporters, and finally dispatched that youth on an errand.

“Somebody’s missing,” said Dan in low tones. “What time is it?”

[73]

“Ten after. They’ll have to hurry if they want to get him.”

Hiltz was plainly nervous and anxious, passing from the window to the door, disappearing in the corridor and hurrying back again.

“Well, our fellows are all here,” said Arthur. “Murdock is voting now, and he’s the last one. Look at Hiltz, will you! I’m going to see who’s missing.”

Arthur wormed his way through the group about the desk and leaned over the list. While he was gone a sandy-haired fellow approached Dan.

“I hope you’ll win, Vinton,” he said. “It was funny about that letter of yours. It came at about eleven one morning, and then at three that afternoon I got a letter from Hiltz asking me to vote for him. I was glad yours came first, though, for I’d rather you got it.”

“Why, thanks, Brewster,” answered Dan cordially. “That was funny, though, wasn’t it? I’m glad I got there first.”

“So’m I. Hope you beat him.” And Brewster strolled away just as Arthur Thompson came back with his eyes dancing with excitement.

“It’s that pill, Conover,” he said in a low voice. “Everyone else has voted. And it’s fourteen minutes past,” he added, glancing at his watch. “If[74] he doesn’t come in the next minute you’ll win for sure, Dan!”

“Jove!” muttered Dan, looking at his own timepiece. “Say, do you mind asking to have the polls closed as soon as time’s up? It will look better coming from you.”

“I’ll do it, don’t you worry.” Arthur kept his eyes on the minute hand of his watch. Hiltz, surrounded by three or four of his friends, was talking angrily, and referring every few seconds to the watch held in his hand.

“Three-fifteen, Chambers,” called Arthur, stepping up to the desk. “Let’s start the count and get through. Some of the fellows have got to report for football in a few minutes.”

Chambers looked at his own watch.

“All right,” he said. “Has everyone here voted? Is Conover in the room?”

“He will be here in a minute,” called Hiltz. “It isn’t a quarter past yet.”

“My watch says it is,” responded Chambers mildly, “but——”

“So does mine,” interrupted Arthur. “It’s almost sixteen after. The polls are supposed to close at three-fifteen.”

“My watch says three-thirteen,” said Hiltz angrily, “and I know that it is right. Besides, if it[75] isn’t, you didn’t open the polls until four minutes after three. You’ve got to allow fifteen minutes, Chambers.”

“Well, I guess there’s no objection to that, is there?” asked Chambers, glancing around.

But it seemed that there was much objection, and things began to get noisy and disputatious in Room F. And just when Chambers was insisting on silence there was a knock on the door.

“He’s come!” groaned Arthur.

But when the door opened it was only the messenger that entered.

“Did you find him?” called Hiltz, hurrying across the room. “Is he coming?”

“Couldn’t find him anywhere, Jake. I’ve been all over the school!”

Hiltz glared a moment at the boy and then turned on his heel and walked to the window, and——

“Polls closed!” announced Chambers.

Arthur clapped Dan on the shoulder.

“You’ve won!” he whispered gleefully. But Dan shook his head.

“Better wait and see. You can’t be sure yet.”

The room quieted down while Chambers opened[76] the ballots and tabulated the votes. It didn’t take him long, and after he had been over the ballots a second time, he rapped on the desk.

“Here’s the result, fellows. Quiet, please.

Thompson, 26.
Vinton, 15.
Hiltz, 13.

“Thompson and Vinton are elected.”

Pandemonium broke loose for a minute, during which Dan, striving to hide his satisfaction under a quiet smile, was congratulated by friend and foe alike. Only Hiltz kept away and, a moment later, left the room, frowning darkly, perhaps in search of the renegade Conover.

“Glad you won, Vinton,” was the remark of several of Hiltz’s supporters. “I didn’t vote for you, you know, because I’d given my word to Hiltz, but I’m glad you beat.”

Then the room emptied and Dan and Arthur followed the others out through the corridor, where the news had already spread. Dan had to stop many times to be shaken by the hand or pounded on the back, but finally he was free to hurry to the gymnasium and get into his togs for afternoon practice. Arthur went with him.

[77]

“But what I don’t see,” said Dan perplexedly, “is how I got fifteen. I had only fourteen that I knew of.”

“I can tell you,” answered Arthur. “The fifteenth was Simms. He stopped me on the way out a minute ago. ‘I concluded you were right, Thompson,’ he said. ‘I don’t like Dan Vinton much, but I guess he’s a heap better than Jake Hiltz. So I voted your way.’”

“Simms! Well, I’m much obliged to him, although, as it happened, I didn’t need his vote. I wonder what became of Conover? I’d hate to be in his shoes when Hiltz finds him!”

“Oh, Conover’s a pill, anyway. He probably forgot all about the election. For my part, I don’t care what Jake does to him!”

The mystery of Conover’s disappearance was explained later, however, when between the two short practice halves Dan shared Tom’s blanket on the side-line.

“They tell me you won, Dan,” said Tom. “Glad to hear it; glad you licked Jake Hiltz. Close, was it?”

“I got fifteen to his thirteen.”

“Fifteen! I thought you said you were sure of only fourteen.”

“I did; and I was. But a fellow named Simms[78] came over to me at the last moment.” Tom chuckled.

“That’s a joke on me, then. Know a chap with rusty hair and spectacles named Conover?”

“Only by sight. He was one of Hiltz’s fellows and didn’t show up. I don’t know what happened to him. Hiltz is crazy mad, I guess. He sent a fellow out to hunt Conover up, but he wasn’t to be found.”

“Guess they didn’t look in the right place,” said Tom with a grin.

“Why? What do you know about it?”

“I know where Conover was from a quarter past two to twenty minutes past three,” replied Tom with a twinkle.

“You do? Where?”

“In Number 7 Dudley.”

“What? In your room? Look here, Tom, what have you been up to?”

“Well, I thought I was up to helping you get elected, but it seems that I might just as well have spared myself the trouble.”

“Do you mean that you—you——”

Tom nodded.

“Exactly. I knew Conover was a chess fiend, and so this morning, after you told me how you stood, I called on him and invited him to play a[79] game with me after dinner. He was pleased to death. I let him have things his own way, of course, and at three I told him that I hated to spoil the game but that it was time for him to go over and cast his vote. I guess he thought I was trying to rattle him. Anyway, he said he didn’t want to vote and wasn’t going to. So I thought he knew his own mind, and didn’t say any more about it. And then, at twenty after, I started in and did him up. He can’t play chess any more than—than Alf can!”

“Tom, you’re a wonder!” laughed Dan. “That’s the best joke I’ve heard in a year. It was mighty decent of you, though,” he continued seriously, “and I appreciate it.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I had my fun, too.”

“But, just the same, I’m rather glad I got Simms’s vote, for I don’t think I’d have liked being elected that way.”

Tom only grunted.