"Oh! oh!" screamed Mrs. Green. "What in the world have you done?

I am covered with flour from head to foot!" And then she began to sneeze with great violence.

"Deed, missus, I don't--ker--chew!" replied Pop, sneezing. "I didn't--ker--chew--"

"But you did--ker--chew!" she answered. "You covered me with--ker--chew! Ker--chew!"

"Oh, you--ker--chew!" and then she went off into another prolonged sneeze.

Pop had gotten some of the flour in his eyes, indeed, his face was white from top to bottom, and it was several minutes before he could see what he was doing. His sneezing made him b.u.mp his head against the kitchen shelf, and at a point where sat a bowl of rice pudding. Part of the pudding was plastered to his forehead, while the balance turned over on to the cat sleeping on the floor.

"Me-ow!" wailed the cat, and started across the kitchen on a run, nearly upsetting Mrs. Green in its hurry to get away from more trouble.

"Stop! Did you kick my pet cat?" screamed Mrs. Green. "Oh, you--ker--chew! You brute! I never--ker--chew! Ker--chew!"

And then she had to stop talking and let the sneezing have full play.

"I didn't kick--ker--chew--nuffin!" spluttered Aleck. "I'se dun--ker--chew--dem boys dun--ker--chew! Dern boys did it."

"Did what?"

"Put flour in ma hat, de ole boy take 'em!" finished Aleck, and then he blundered out of the kitchen and tried to find Larry and the others. But all of the cadets, who had been watching proceedings through the kitchen window, had vanished and could not be found.

A couple of hours later Tom and d.i.c.k took the colored man down to the Stanhope cottage. Mrs. Stanhope already knew the man well, as did Dora, and both were glad that he had come to stay with them.

Pop had brought along a pistol, and also a war club he had picked up in Africa, and declared himself ready to meet any and all comers.

"I'se dun learned how to shoot putty straight," he remarked. "So de fellers wot prowls around bettah look out fo' demselbes."

"Crabtree is in jail, so you will only have Dan Baxter to guard against," said d.i.c.k. "And I hardly think he will show up in a hurry."

That night d.i.c.k and Tom had a long conversation with Mrs. Stanhope.

The lady was very nervous, and when asked if she would appear against Josiah Crabtree she shivered from head to foot.

"I--I cannot do it," she said brokenly. "Do not ask it of me!

He--he-- I cannot face him without he makes me feel as if I were in his power."

"He is something of a hypnotist," said Tom. "Cannot you remember that, and nerve yourself against coming under his spell?"

But the lady only shivered again. "No! no! I have tried it--for Dora's sake--but I cannot do it! I am horrified at his influence, but I cannot withstand it."

"Then you will keep away from the court room when he is tried?"

"Yes, I must. I will get my doctor to issue a certificate that I am ill."

"Will you let Dora testify? If she wishes to do so."

There the matter rested, and the two boys sought out Dora.

"It is too bad," said d.i.c.k, on the way. "Mrs. Stanhope is on the verge of a nervous collapse, and I believe it is all on account of Crabtree's doings."

"Yes, and I am afraid she will never get away from his influence.

If he hadn't been something of a hypnotist I don't believe she would ever have taken to him at the start as she did."

When Dora was told of what her mother had said, she felt like crying, and the tears stood in her eyes.

"I know it all only too well," she said. "I am glad mamma mill not face him. Why, he would influence her into declaring that he was innocent!"

"But you will testify, won't you?" asked d.i.c.k earnestly.

"If you wish it, d.i.c.k. But I hate the publicity."

"Crabtree ought to be put where he can do your mother no further harm."

"Yes, I feel that, too."

"And you must remember how he helped to abduct you."

"I haven't forgot that."

Vick and Tom remained until it was quite late, and then almost ran back to the Hall, for the captain had told them not to be out after eleven o'clock.

For several days matters ran smoothly at the Hall. Then came Josiah Crabtree's trial, and all of the Rover boys went to the county seat, to remain several days. With them went Dora and her uncle, John Laning.

The former teacher's trial lasted longer than expected, and the jury were out the best part of a night before arriving at a verdict. In the end, much to the Rover boys' surprise, Crabtree was sentenced to six months in the county jail, instead of to several years in the State's prison.

"I can't understand it," muttered d.i.c.k, when, they were on the way back to the Hall. "He must have hypnotized the judge who tried the case." The verdict was a disappointing one, yet it was something to know that Crabtree would be out of the way even that long.

"Before he gets out you can be on your trip to Buffalo and the Great Lakes," said d.i.c.k to Dora. "And perhaps you can hide your whereabouts from him, so that he can't get at your mother, to try on his game again."

"I will certainly try to throw him off the track," answered the girl. "I never want to see him again."

Captain Putnam was anxious to learn how the trial had ended, and came from the academy on horseback to meet the boys.

"Well, it is something," he said, half-smiling. "But you are right, he deserved more."

"I knew he was no good," said Tom. "Knew it from the first time I met him, when he was head a.s.sistant here, and placed me under arrest for shooting off a fire-cracker at the gate."

At this Captain Putnam laughed outright.

"You have a good memory, Thomas, I must say! Well, you are square now, as you boys call it."

CHAPTER XII

WINTER DAYS AT PUTNAM HALL

After the trial of Josiah Crabtree the days flew by swiftly at the Hall. Bound to make a good showing, each of the Rover boys applied himself diligently to his studies, and all made rapid progress.