"I'm sinking!" shouted John Higley.

The three conspirators were floundering about in the water. Because of the rope nooses about their feet their efforts to stand upright were not entirely successful.

"Who did this?" inquired Bagot angrily, as he tried to get rid of a mouthful of water.

"If--if I-I die they'll hang for this!" spluttered Ed Simpson.

"No danger of your drowning, you're too mean," said Jack. "Besides it's only up to your knees. Stand up and wade out."

By this time the three lads, their clothing dripping with water, had managed to stand upright. They reached down under the dancing wavelets and loosened the nooses.

"You'll pay for this, Jack Ranger," shouted Adrian, shaking his fist at our hero.

"All right, I'm ready whenever you are," was the cool answer. "Come on, fellows, we don't want to be late for the lecture," and he started from the water, followed by his chums.

"I'll have you arrested for damaging my clothes," exclaimed Ed.

"And I suppose you'd tell on the witness stand about what you intended to do to ours," went on Jack. "I guess you'll cry 'quits,'

that's what you'll do. You tried to play a trick on us, but you got left. So long. Don't miss the lecture."

He scrambled ash.o.r.e, his comrades doing likewise, while the three lads who had taken such an unexpected bath waded out as best they could. They were sorry looking sights.

"But I don't exactly un-d-d-d-erstand how it it h-h-h-appened?"

stuttered Will, who had not had hold of one of the ropes.

"I just made slip nooses, and placed them where they'd have to step into them before they could lay hands on the clothes," explained Jack. "Budge gave me the signal when they were inside the ropes."

"And then we just pulled," put in Nat. "Wow! It was a corker, Jack!

How did you think of it?"

"It just happened to come to me. Say didn't they come down off that bank sailing, though?"

"I pulled as if I was landing a ten pound pickerel," said Fred. "I wonder who I had."

"Didn't stop to notice," Jack said, as he slipped on his coat. "They all came together. What a splash they made!"

By this time the three conspirators had crawled up the bank. They were so soaking wet that it was hard to walk. Their shoes "squashed"

out water at every step. They sat down on the gra.s.s, took them off, and removed some of their garments, which they proceeded to wring out.

"Better hurry up," advised Jack, as he finished dressing. "Lecture begins in about two hours, and you're quite a way from home."

"I'll--" began Ed Simpson, when Adrian stopped him with a gesture.

"Sorry we have to leave you," Sam went on. "If you'd sent your cards we would have had the water warmed for you. Hope you didn't find it too chilly."

The three cronies did not reply, but went on trying to get as much water as possible from their garments. Leaving them sitting on the gra.s.s, as the afternoon waned into evening, the swimmers hurried back to the academy.

When the roll was called at the evening lecture, which was at an early hour, Jack and his friends replied "here!"

For a week or more after the episode at the lake, matters at the academy went on in a rather more even tenor than was usual. One night Sam, who finished his studying early went to Jack's room.

"Boning away?" he asked.

"Just finishing my Caesar," was the reply. "Why, anything on?"

"Nothing special," replied Sam. "Do you feel anything queer in your bones?"

"Not so much as a touch of fever and ague," replied Jack with a laugh. "Do you need quinine?"

"Quit your fooling. I mean don't you feel as if you wanted to do something?"

"Oh I'm always that way, more or less," Jack admitted. "I'm not taking anything for it, though."

"I'd like to take a stroll," said Sam. "I think that would quiet me down. I feel just as if something was going to happen."

"Probably something will, if we go out at this hour," Jack said.

"It's against the rules."

"I know it is, but it wouldn't be the first time you or I did it.

Come on, let's go out. Down the trellis, the way you did when you discovered Grimm smoking."

"I don't know," began Jack.

"Of course you don't," interrupted Sam. "I'll attend to all that.

Come on."

Needing no more urging, Jack laid aside his book, turned his light low, and soon he and Sam were cautiously making their way from Jack's window, along a trellis and drain pipe to the ground.

"There!" exclaimed Sam, as he dropped lightly to the earth. "I feel better already. Some of the restlessness has gone."

"Keep shady," muttered Jack. "Some of the teachers have rooms near here."

They walked along under the shadow of the Hall until they came to a window from which a brilliant light streamed forth. It came from a crack between the lowered shade and the cas.e.m.e.nt. It was impossible to pa.s.s it without seeing what was going on inside the apartment. At the same time they could hear the murmur of voices.

"Adrian Bagot, and his two cronies up to some trick!" whispered Jack, as he grasped Sam by the arm.

The two friends saw the three new students bending over a table, containing a pot of something, which they seemed to be stirring with a long stick.

"What are they up to?" whispered Sam.

"Experimenting with chemicals, perhaps," said Jack.

"Don't you believe it," retorted Sam. "They're up to some game, you can bet. I wonder if we can't get wise to what it is."

Cautiously they drew nearer to the window. They found it was open a crack.

"Will it make much of an explosion?" asked Ed Simpson.