“Then you’ve got it in your hand,” said Gerald untroubledly and without turning.

“I haven’t! I tell you it isn’t here!”

“Not there!” Gerald turned and stared at the table and from the table to Dan’s hands and from thence to his face. “But—why, I put it there not two hours ago!”

“Are you sure?” Dan looked about the room. “Didn’t you tuck it away in a drawer somewhere?”

“No, I took it out of the bag and put it right here on the table.” Gerald placed his hand on the spot. “And then I went over there to the radiator and warmed my hands and feet and looked at it.”

“Well, it’s mighty funny,” grumbled Dan. “You’d better look in your bureau, Gerald.”

“But I tell you I left it there, Dan!” Nevertheless Gerald opened the drawers one after the[242] other and peeked in. “It was there when I went out. I didn’t touch it after I took it out of the bag.”

“What did you do with the bag?” asked Dan, making an unsuccessful search among the cushions of the window seat.

“Tossed it on the table. Isn’t it there?”

“Not a sign of it.” Dan thrust his hands in his pockets and frowned across at his roommate. “Look here, chum, this is sort of peculiar. Are you certain you went for it?”

“Am I certain—” began Gerald exasperatedly. “Don’t be silly, Dan! Of course, I’m certain. I’m not likely to forget it, for I almost froze coming home.”

“You didn’t drop it on the way? Or leave it anywhere?”

“I brought it up here and put it on the table there,” answered Gerald decidedly and a trifle impatiently. “Some one has taken and hidden it; that’s all there is to it; and I think it’s a pretty poor joke.”

“Was anyone with you?”

“No, I was alone. Let’s look around the room. Some fellow must have stuck it away somewhere.”

“I don’t see who could have done that,” answered[243] Dan. “I don’t believe anyone has been in here this afternoon except you.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” answered Gerald crossly. “I know I left it there and now it’s gone. Look under your bed, Dan.”

They searched the room thoroughly, looked under the beds and the window seat and the chiffoniers, peered into the dark corners of the closets, pulled things off the shelves, investigated the mattresses and, in short, turned the place upside down. Then they sat down and stared at each other.

“Well, it beats me,” said Dan hopelessly. “All I can think is that you imagined it, Gerald.”

“I didn’t imagine it, I tell you! Did you look thoroughly in your bureau?”

“Yes,” Dan replied, but went back to it and took everything out of the drawers, and Gerald did the same with his belongings. Then they lifted photograph frames and looked behind the radiator and searched in equally impossible places. Finally Dan sank into a chair and Gerald subsided on his bed.

“It isn’t in this room,” said Dan decidedly. “Either you imagined that you brought it up here, Gerald, or some one has been in and taken it away.”

[244]

“Then some one has taken it,” said Gerald decisively. “Do you suppose Tom could have come in and seen it and taken it over to Dudley?”

Dan’s face cleared.

“I’ll bet that’s just what happened,” he said. “We’ll stop there when we go to supper and find out. It couldn’t have been anyone but Tom. Alf was at hockey and no one else would have any right to touch it. Let’s wash up and run over there.”

“I don’t suppose anyone would steal it,” said Gerald half questioningly.

“Steal it! Of course not! No one ever gets up here but the fellows and the chambermaids and the faculty. Besides, it isn’t likely that a thief would have taken the bag too.”

“No, that’s so,” Gerald agreed. “I guess Tom found it and thought Alf wanted it over there.”

But that theory was short-lived. When they reached 7 Dudley they found Tom and Alf just leaving the room to go to commons for supper.

“Say, Tom, did you burglarize our room this afternoon?” asked Dan.

“If I did I’ll bet I didn’t get much,” was the answer. “Why?”

“Didn’t you get the cup?”

[245]

“The cup? What cup are you talking about?”

“The hockey cup. Quit fooling, Tom. You took it, didn’t you?”

Tom saw by the earnest look on Dan’s face that that youth was not joking and so he answered seriously:

“I haven’t been near your room to-day, Dan. What’s up?”

“Why, Gerald says he brought the hockey cup home from Greenburg and put it on the table and left it there when he went to practice. It isn’t there now and we’ve searched high and low for it.”

“That’s a funny game,” said Alf anxiously. “Is that straight, Dan?”

“Yes. The only thing I could think of was that Tom had happened in and taken it over here.”

“Have you looked everywhere in the room?”

“Rather! The place looks like a pigsty; we’ve pulled everything out of the drawers and even looked under the mattresses. Oh, it isn’t there, Alf. Some one, I don’t know who, has taken it out of that room. I suppose they’ve done it for a joke, but if I catch them I’ll show them who the joke is on.”

“Well, let’s go over to supper. Afterwards we’ll go up to your room and see if we can’t find it.”

[246]

“You’re welcome to look,” said Dan impatiently, “but I tell you it isn’t there.”

“Perhaps whoever swiped it will bring it back by that time,” said Tom cheerfully. “I guess some fresh chump saw it and thought he’d have some fun with you fellows.”

“I’d like to be there when he returned it,” growled Dan, as they hurried across to Whitson and supper.

Half an hour later they climbed the stairs to 28. They all more than half expected to see the silver trophy standing on the table when Dan threw the door open. But it wasn’t there. Alf made the other three sit down and himself began a systematic search of the premises. At the end of ten minutes, however, he was forced to agree with Dan and Gerald. The Pennimore Cup was not in 28 Dudley, wherever it might be. Dan sat down and took one knee into his hands.

“Now let’s get at this thing,” he said. “Tell us just what happened after you got to Proctor’s store, Gerald.”

“I gave him your note and told him I’d come to take the cup back. He went to the window and got it and put it in the flannel bag. I took it and walked home with it and when I got up here——”

[247]

“Wait a minute,” Alf interrupted. “Didn’t you say you stopped and got a hot chocolate somewhere?”

“No, I said I wanted to, but I was afraid that if I went into Wallace’s he would recognize me and make a fuss about his broken glasses.”

“So you didn’t stop anywhere after you left Proctor’s?”

“No, not until I got to the bridge.”

“The river bridge? Why did you stop there?”

“Because Harry Merrow called to me. He and some other chaps were skating just above the bridge.”

“What did he want?” asked Alf.

“He asked if I was going to skate. He thought the bag was a skate bag, you see. I told him I had the cup in it.”

“Then what?”

“The............