“If one might judge by the way you talk and act, you didn’t want to come to this school,” said Lester. “No, I didn’t,” answered Huggins. “I don’t want to go to any school. The height of my ambition is to become a sailor. I was born in sight of the ocean, and have snuffed its breezes and been tossed about by its waves ever since I can remember. I live near Gloucester, and my father is largely interested in the cod-fishery. He began life as a fisherman, but he owns a good sized fleet now.”
“Didn’t he want you to go to sea?” asked Lester.
“No. He allowed me to go to the banks now and then, but when I told him that I wanted to make a regular business of it, he wouldn’t listen to me. After I got tired of trying to reason with[46] him, I made preparations to run away from home; but he caught me at it, and bundled me off here.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m not going to stay. I’ve been to school before, but I was never snubbed as I have been since I came to Bridgeport. The idea that a boy of my age should be obliged to say ‘sir’ to every little up-start who wears a shoulder-strap! I’ll not do it.”
“You’d better. If you don’t you will be in trouble continually.”
“Let the trouble come. I’ll get out of its way.”
“How will you do it?”
Huggins shut one eye, looked at Lester with the other, and laid his finger by the side of his nose.
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid to trust me,” said Lester, who easily understood this pantomime. “Those who are best acquainted with me will tell you that I am true blue. I know just how you feel. I don’t like this school any better than you do; I was sent here in spite of all I could say to prevent it. I have been snubbed by the boys in the upper classes because I spoke to them before[47] they spoke to me, and when I see a chance to leave without being caught, I shall improve it.”
“I guess I can rely upon you to keep my secret,” said Huggins, but it is hard to tell how he reached this conclusion. One single glance at that peaked, freckled face, whose every feature bore evidence to the sneaking character and disposition of its owner, ought to have satisfied him that his room-mate was not a boy who could be confided in.
“You may depend upon me every time,” said Lester, earnestly. “I’ll bring twenty good fellows to help you.”
“Oh, I can’t take so many boys with me,” said Huggins, looking up in surprise. “I couldn’t find berths for them.”
“Are you going off on a boat?”
“Of course I am. Some dark night, when all the rest of the fellows are asleep, I am going to slip out of here, take my foot in my hand and draw a bee-line for Oxford; and when I get there, I am going to ship aboard the first sea-going vessel I can find.”
“As a sailor?” exclaimed Lester.
“Certainly. I shall have to go before the[48] mast; but I’ll not stay there, for I can hand, reef and steer as well as the next man, I don’t care where he comes from, and I understand navigation, too.”
Lester was sadly disappointed. He hoped and believed that his room-mate was about to propose something in which he could join him.
“I am sorry I can’t go with you,” said he; “but I don’t want to follow the sea.”
“Of course you don’t, for you belong ashore. I belong on the water, and there’s where I am going. Oxford is two hundred miles from Bridgeport, and that is a long distance to walk through snow that is two feet deep.”
“You can go on the cars,” suggested Lester.
“No, I can’t; unless I steal a ride. My father is determined to keep me here, and consequently he does not allow me a cent of money,” said Huggins; and he proved it by turning all his pockets inside out to show that they were empty.
“He is mean, isn’t he?” said Lester, indignantly. He was about to add that his father had given him a very liberal supply of bills before he set out on his return to Rochdale, but he did not[49] say it, for fear that his friend Huggins might want to borrow a dollar or two.
“But he will find that I am not going to let the want of money stand in my way,” added Huggins. “I saw several nice little yachts in their winter quarters when I was at the wharf the other day, and if it were summer we’d get a party of fellows together, run off in one of them, and go somewhere and have some fun. When the time came to separate, each one could go where he pleased. The rest of you could hold a straight course for home, if you felt like it, and I would go to sea.”
“That’s the very idea,” exclaimed Lester. “I wonder why some of the boys didn’t think of it long ago. When you get ready to go, count me in.”
“I shall not be here to take part in it,” replied Huggins. “I hope to be on deep water before many days more have passed over my head.”
“I am sorry to hear you say so, for you would be just the fellow to lead an expedition like that. But there’s one thing you have forgotten: if you intend to slip away from the academy, you will need help.”
[50]
“I don’t see why I should. I shall not stir until every one is asleep.”
“Then you’ll not go out at all. There are sentries posted around the grounds at this moment, and as soon as it grows dark, guards will take charge of every floor in this building. It is easy enough to get by the sentries—I know, for some of the boys told me so—but how are you going to pass these floor-guards when they are watching your room?”
“Whew!” whistled Huggins. “They hold a fellow tight, don’t they?”
“They certainly do; and it is not a very pleasant state of affairs for one who has been allowed to go and come whenever he felt like it. Your best plan would be to ask for a pass. That will take you by the guards, and when you get off the grounds, you needn’t come back.”
“But suppose I can’t get a pass?”
“Then the only thing you can do is to wait until some of your friends are on duty. They will pass you and keep still about it afterward.”
“I haven’t a single friend in the school.”
“You can make some by simply showing the boys that your heart is in the right place. I must[51] go now to meet an engagement; but I will see you later, and if you like, I will introduce you to a few acquaintances I have made since my arrival, every one of whom you can trust.”
As Lester said this, he put on his hat and overcoat and left the room. Huggins had given him an idea, and he wanted to get away by himself and think about it. He did not have time to spend a great deal of study upon it, for as he was about to pass out at the front door, he met Jones, who was just the boy he wanted to see. He was in the company of several members of his class, but a wink and a slight nod of the head quickly brought him to Lester’s side.
“Say, Jones,” whispered the latter, “I understand that there are a good many yachts owned in this village, and that they are in their winter quarters now. When warm weather comes, what would you say to capturing one of them, and going off somewhere on a picnic?”
“Lester, you’re a good one,” exclaimed Jones, admiringly.
“Do you think it could be done?”
“I am sure of it,” replied Jones, who grew enthusiastic at once. “It’s the very idea, and I[52] know the boys will be in for it hot and heavy. It takes the new fellows to get up new schemes. I can see only two objections to it.”
“What are they?” inquired Lester.
“The first is, that we can’t carry it out under four or five months. Couldn’t you think up something that we could go at immediately?”
“I am afraid not,” answered Lester. “Where could we go and what could we do if we were to desert now? We could not sleep out of doors with the thermometer below zero, for we would freeze to death. We must have warm weather for our excursion.”
“That’s so,” said Jones, reflectively. “I suppose we shall have to wait, but I don’t like to, and neither would you if you knew what we’ve got to go through with before the ice is all out of the river. The other objection is, that we have no one among us who can manage the yacht after we capture it.”
“What’s the reason we haven’t?”
“Can you do it?”
“I might. I have taken my own yacht in a pleasure cruise around the great lakes from Oswego to Duluth,” replied Lester, with unblushing[53] mendacity. “It was while I was in Michigan that I killed some of those bears.”
“I didn’t know you had ever killed any,” said Jones, opening his eyes in amazement.
“Oh, yes, I have. They are also abundant in Mississippi, and one day I kept one of them from chewing up Don Gordon.”
“You don’t say so. You and Kenyon ought to be chums; there he is,” said Jones, directing Lester’s attention to a tall, lank young fellow who looked a great deal more like a backwoodsman than he did like a soldier. “He is from Michigan. His father is a lumberman, and Sam had never been out of the woods until a year ago, when he was sent to this school to have a little polish put on him. But he is one of the good little boys. He says he came here to learn and has no time to fool away. Shall I introduce you?”
“By no means,” said Lester, hastily. He did not think it would be quite safe. If his friend Jones made him known to Kenyon as a renowned bear-hunter, the latter might go at him in much the same style that Huggins did, and then there would be another exposure. He could not afford to be caught in many more lies if he hoped to[54] make himself a leader among his companions. “Since Kenyon is one of the good boys, I have no desire to become acquainted with him,” he added. “And, while I think of it, Jones, don’t repeat what I said to you.”
“About the bears? I won’t.”
“Because, if you do, the fellows will say I am trying to make myself out to be somebody, and that wouldn’t be pleasant. After I have been here awhile they will be able to form their own opinion of me.”
“They will do that just as soon as I tell them about this plan of yours,” said Jones. “They’ll say you are the boy they have been waiting for. But you will take command of the yacht, after we get her, will you not?”
“Yes; I’ll do that.”
“It is nothing more than fair that you should have the post of honor, for you proposed it. I will talk the matter up among the fellows before I am an hour older.”
“Just one word more,” said Lester, as Jones was about to move off. “My room-mate is going to desert and go to sea. If I will make you acquainted[55] with him, will you point out to him the boys who will help him?”
“I’ll be glad to do it,” said Jones, readily. “But tell him to keep his own counsel until I can have a talk with him. If he should happen to drop a hint of what he intends to do in the presence of some boys whose names I could mention, they would carry it straight to the superintendent, and then Huggins would find himself in a box.”
“If he runs away, will they try to catch him?” asked Lester.
“To be sure they will. Squads of men will be sent out in every direction, and some of them will catch him too, unless he’s pretty smart. Tell him particularly to look out for Captain Mack. He’s the worst one in the lot. He can follow a trail with all the certainty of a hound, and no deserter except Don Gordon ever succeeded in giving him the slip. Now you take a walk about the grounds, and I will see what my friends think about this yacht business. I will see you again in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
So saying Jones walked off to join his companions, while Lester strolled slowly toward the gate.[56] The latter was highly gratified by the promptness with which his idea (Huggins’s idea, rather) had been indorsed, but he wished he had not said so much about his ability to manage the yacht. He knew as much about sailing as he did about shooting and fishing, that is, nothing at all. He had never seen a pleasure-boat larger than Don Gordon’s. If anybody had put a sail into a skiff and told him it was a yacht, Lester would not have known the difference.
“It isn’t at all likely that my plan will amount to anything,” said Lester, to himself. “I suggested it just because I wanted the fellows to know that there are those in the world who are fully as brave as Don Gordon is supposed to be. But if Jones and his crowd should take me at my word, wouldn’t I be in a fix? What in the name of wonder would I do?”
It was evident that Lester was sadly mistaken in the boys with whom he had to deal, and he received another convincing proof of it before half an hour had passed. By the time he had taken a dozen turns up and down the long path, he saw Jones and Enoch Williams hurrying to meet him. The expression on their faces told him that they[57] had what they considered to be good news to communicate.
“It’s all right, Brigham,” said Jones, in a gleeful voice. “The boys are in for it, as I told you they would be, and desired us to say to you that you could not have hit upon anything that would suit them better. I have been counting noses, and have so far found fifteen good fellows upon whom you can call for help any time you want it. They all agreed with me when I suggested that you ought to have the management of the whole affair.”
“Where did you learn yachting, Brigham?” asked Enoch.
“On the lakes,” replied Lester.
“Then you must be posted. I have heard that they have some hard storms up there occasionally.”
“You may safely say that. It is almost always rough off Saginaw bay,” answered Lester; and that was true, but he did not know it by experience. He had heard somebody say so.
“I am something of a yachtsman myself,” continued Enoch. “I brought my little schooner from Great South Bay, Long Island, around into Chesapeake bay. Of course my father laid the[58] course for me, and kept his weather eye open to see that I didn’t make any mistakes; but I gave the orders myself, and handled the vessel.”
Lester, who had been on the point of entertaining his two friends by telling of some thrilling adventures that had befallen him during his imaginary cruise from Oswego to Duluth, opened his eyes and closed his lips when he heard this. He saw that his chances for making a hero of himself were growing smaller every hour. He was afraid to talk about fishing in the presence of his room-mate; he dared not speak of bears while he was in the hearing of Sam Kenyon; and it would not be at all safe for him to enlarge upon his knowledge of seamanship, for here was a boy at his elbow who had sailed his own yacht on deep water. He was doomed to remain in the background, and to be of no more consequence at the academy than any other plebe. He could see that very plainly.
“There’s a splendid little boat down there near the wharf,” continued Enoch, who was as deeply in love with the water and everything connected with it as Huggins was, although he had no desire to go before the mast. “I bribed her keeper to[59] let me take a look at her the other day, and I tell you her appointments are perfect. I should say that her cabin and forecastle would accommodate about twenty boys. But this is cutter-rigged, and I don’t know anything about vessels of that sort; do you?”
“I’ve seen lots of them,” answered Lester.
“I suppose you have; but did you ever handle one?”
Lester replied that his own boat was a cutter; and when he said it, he had as clear an idea of what he was talking about as he had of the Greek language.
“Then we are all right,” said Enoch. “They look top-heavy to me, and I shouldn’t care to trust myself out in one during a gale, unless there was a sailor-man in charge of her. But if we get her and find that she is too much for us, we can send the yard down and make a sloop of her. It wouldn’t pay to have her capsize with us.”
Lester shuddered at the mere mention of such a thing; and while Enoch continued to talk in this way, filling his sentences full of nautical terms, that were familiar enough to him and quite unintelligible to Lester, the latter set his wits at work to[60] conjure up some excuse for backing out when the critical time came. He was not at all fond of the water, he was afraid to run the risk of capture and punishment, and he sincerely hoped that something would happen to prevent the proposed excursion.
“Of course we can’t decide upon the details until the time for action arrives,” said Jones, at length. “But you have given us something to think of and to look forward to, and we are indebted to you for that. Now, let’s call upon your room-mate and see what we can do to help him.”
Lester led the way to his dormitory, and as he opened the door rather suddenly, he and his companion surprised Huggins in the act of making up a small bundle of clothing. He was startled by this abrupt entrance, and he must have been frightened as well, for his face was as white as a sheet.
“It’s all right, Huggins,” said Lester, who at once proceeded with the ceremony of introduction. “You needn’t be afraid of these fellows.”
“Of course not,” assented Jones. “We know that you intend to take French leave, but it is all right, and if there is any way in which we can[61] help you, we hope you will not hesitate to say so.”
Huggins did not seem to be fully reassured by these words. The pallor did not leave his face, and the visitors noticed that he trembled as he seated himself on the edge of his bed.
“I am obliged to you, but I don’t think I shall need any assistance. This will see me through the lines, will it not?” said Huggins, pulling from his pocket a piece of paper on which was written an order for all guards and patrols to pass private Albert Huggins until half-past nine o’clock. The printed heading showed that it was genuine.
“Yes, that’s all you need to take you by the guards,” said Jones. “And when half-past nine comes, you will be a long way from here, I suppose.”
“I shall be as far off as my feet can carry me by that time,” replied Huggins. “But don’t tell any one which way I have gone, will you?”
“If you were better acquainted with us you would know that your caution is entirely unnecessary,” said Jones. “But you are not going to walk two hundred miles, are you? Why don’t you go by rail?”
[62]
“How can I when I have no money?”
“Are you strapped?” exclaimed Enoch. “I can spare you a dollar.”
“I’ll give you another,” said Jones, looking at Lester.
“I’ll—I’ll give another,” said the latter; but he uttered the words with the greatest reluctance. He was always ready to spend money, but he wanted to know, before he parted with it, that it was going to bring him some pleasure in return. As he spoke he made a step toward his trunk, but Huggins earnestly, almost vehemently, motioned him back.
“No, no, boys,” said he, “I’ll not take a cent from any of you. I am used to roughing it, and I shall get through all right. All I ask of you is to keep away so as not to direct attention to me. How soon will my absence be discovered?”
“That depends upon the floor-guard,” answered Jones. “If he is one of those sneaking fellows who is forever sticking his nose into business that does not concern him, he will report your absence to the officer of the guard when he makes his rounds at half-past nine. If the floor-guard keeps his mouth shut, no one will know you are gone[63] until the morning roll is called. In any event no effort will be made to find you until to-morrow.”
“And then I may expect to be pursued, I suppose?”
“You may; and if you are not caught, it will be a wonder. Every effort will be made to capture you, for don’t you see that if you were permitted to escape, other boys would be encouraged to take French leave in the same way? Now, listen to me, and I will give you some advice that may be of use to you.”
If his advice, which was given with the most friendly intentions, had been favorably received, Jones would have said a good deal more than he did; but he very soon became aware that his words of warning were falling on deaf ears. Huggins was not listening to him. He was unaccountably nervous and excited, and Jones, believing that he would be better pleased by their absence than he was with their company, gave the signal for leaving by picking up his cap. He lingered long enough to shake hands with Huggins and wish him good luck in outwitting his pursuers and finding a vessel, and then he went out, followed by Enoch and Lester.
[64]
“How strangely he acted!” said the latter.
“Didn’t he?” exclaimed Enoch. “He seemed frightened at our offer to give him a few dollars to help him along. What was there wrong in that? If I had been in his place I would not have refused. Now he can take his choice between begging his food and going hungry.”
“I don’t envy him his long, cold walk,” observed Jones. “And where is he going to find a bed when night comes? The people in this country don’t like tramps any too well, and the first time he stops at a farm-house he may be interviewed by a bull-dog.”
Lester did not find an opportunity to talk with his room-mate again that day. They marched down to supper together, and as soon as the ranks were broken, Huggins made all haste to put on his hat and overcoat, secure his bundle and quit the room. He would hardly wait to say good-by to Lester, and didn’t want the latter to go with him as far as the gate.
“He’s well out of his troubles, and mine are just about to begin,” thought Lester, as he stood on the front steps and saw Huggins disappear in the darkness. “I would run away myself if I[65] were not afraid of the consequences. It wouldn’t be safe to try father’s patience too severely, for there is no telling what he would do to me.”
Lester strolled about until the bugle sounded “to quarters,” and then he went up to his room, where he passed a very lonely evening. No one dared to come near him, and if he had attempted to leave his room, he would have been ordered back by the floor-guard. He knew he ought to study, but still he would not do it. It would be time enough, he thought, to take up his books, when he could see no way to get out of it.
Lester went to bed long before taps, and slept soundly until he was aroused by the report of the morning gun, and the noise of the fifes and drums in the drill-room. Having been told that he would have just six minutes in which to dress, he got into his clothes without loss of time, and fell into the ranks just as the last strains of the morning call died away.