Chapter 4 ANOTHER ATTEMPTED HAZING

Herring and Merritt and others like them were not satisfied to accept Jack Sheldon on the same footing as had Percival and the better class of boys at the Academy.

Herring had been used to doing about as he pleased with the new boys and any interference seemed like a curtailing of his rights as he looked at it, and he greatly resented it.

"We'll see if that new berry picking chap can get the best of us, Ern," he said to Merritt when he was alone with a few of his cronies after Harry Dickson's declaration that Jack was good enough for any of them to associate with.

"He won't do it, Pete," replied Merritt.

"There's no use in doing anything in the dormitories," remarked Zenas Holt, one of the party.

"No, that makes too much noise," muttered another of the party all being interested in the scheme which they knew Herring must be concocting to get the best of Jack.

"No, everybody hazes new fellows in the dormitories," growled Herring. "He'll be watching for us and then he has made a lot of new friends and they will go to his help."

"We want to catch him alone," suggested Merritt.

"That's the talk," added Holt.

"Just what I was thinking of," said Herring, "and if you fellows will stop talking so much, I'll tell you how we can fix it."

These boys were just the sort to attack another with the odds against him and never had a notion that there was anything cowardly in that way of accomplishing their ends.

As a matter of fact, Herring was afraid of Percival, who was his equal in size and strength as well as in athletic qualities and a good boxer to boot, and therefore did not wish to have the latter about when they set out to haze Jack.

"There are other ways of doing the thing besides getting up a row in the dormitories," he said.

"Sure!" added Merritt. "We don't want the profs. coming in on us to spoil the fun."

"Nor to have to lick Percival and a lot of other fools that have taken up with the new chap," observed Holt.

"H'm! you'd lick Dick Percival, I don't think!" sneered Merritt, who never lost a chance to jeer any one, his own associates included. "I'd like to see you do it."

"Shut up!" snarled Herring. "How can we talk the thing over if you're always putting in your oar?"

"You aren't wearing a lot of medals yourself for keeping your mouth shut, Pete," retorted Merritt.

"Who's getting this thing up?" snarled the other. "Me or you? Did you start it?"

"No, but you can't get along without me, all the same, so don't be so fresh and breezy."

"If you fellows are going to squabble there'll be nothing done at all," put in Holt impatiently.

"It ain't me that's squabbling, it's Ern Merritt," growled the leader of the bullies, angrily. "If he don't want to go into this thing he needn't, but there's no use in doing so much talking."

"Who's doing the most of it?" laughed Merritt.

"Shut up!" said the rest of the boys, who wanted to hear what Herring had to propose.

"There are other places besides the dormitories to work in," said Herring. "There's the woods and the road and a lot of other places. He won't be with the other fellows all the time."

"No, of course not."

"It'll be easy enough to send him a note and get him away from the buildings and then we can do just what we like."

"Give him a good scare and take the nonsense out of him."

"And he won't know us, neither, for we'll have masks on and we mustn't say a word."

"That'll be a hard thing for you," laughed Merritt, who could not resist the temptation to have another fling at Herring.

The latter paid no attention to him, however, knowing that one word would only lead to another.

"We'll watch him," he continued; "find out when he goes off by himself and then do the job up brown. If he don't go off alone, we'll fix it so he will, and that's easy."

"What'll you do with him?" asked Holt. "Steal his clothes and make him walk home at night?"

"Black him up with soot and send him back," suggested another, "That stuff is awful hard to get off."

"I'll make a good job, all right," muttered Herring. "Just you leave it to me."

Some of the better sort of boys were seen approaching at that moment, and Herring said in a low tone:

"Come on, let's get out. Go in different directions. Those fellows might get a notion that we were fixing up something."

The boys went off in different directions, and Harry, who was one of the other boys, said to Arthur:

"If Pete Herring and those sneaks are not plotting against the new fellow, I'll miss my guess."

"Well, it may not be against him," replied Arthur, "but it probably has to do with some of the new fellows or with the little ones. Herring and his crowd are always pestering them."

"If they try to make any trouble for Jack, they will get all that's coming to them," laughed Billy Manners.

"Yes, you found out that he could take care of himself, didn't you?" asked Arthur with a chuckle.

"There were others," replied Billy with a grin.

Herring and his accomplices found a chance to meet again later when there was no chance of being interrupted by any of Jack's friends, and the bully laid his plans before the rest.

"That's all right," said Merritt.

"Couldn't have fixed it up better myself," added Holt.

"That'll do the trick," said another.

Some time later, with still considerable time before supper, Jack happened to be passing the rear of the house where Bucephalus was at work on a wagon.

"Dey was a tullyphome message fo' yo', sah," said the man. "Yo' was to call up two-fo'-six as soon as conwenient."

"Where is the booth, Bucephalus?" asked Jack.

"Raght in bahn, sah. Dere am a switch fo' mah conwenience. Yo'll fin' it cluss to de do', sah."

"All right," and Jack went into the barn, where he saw a telephone receiver and transmitter on a little shelf near the door.

He took down the receiver and called up the number which Bucephalus had given him, waiting a moment for an answer.

"Hello, who is this?" he presently heard over the wire.

"John Sheldon. I was told to call you up. Who is this and what do you want of me?"

"This is Jones, down at the station. There is an express package for you here that has to be signed for. Better come after it."

"Can't you send it?" asked Jack, who thought that the voice sounded rather too near to come from the station below.

Furthermore, it seemed to him that it sounded suspiciously like that of Peter Herring, the leading bully of the Academy.

He had not had much conversation with the fellow, but what he had had was sufficient to make him remember the voice, and he had a good memory for all voices.

"No, I can't send it now. Haven't got any one to send. You can take a short cut through the woods as you leave the Academy and get here in a few minutes. It's shorter than by the road. Take the turn on the right after you get out of sight."

"Is there any hurry?"

"Yes, I gotter go to supper, but I'll wait for you. Hurry up!" and Jack heard the sound of the receiver being hung up on the other end.

He hung up his receiver and went out, finding Bucephalus still at work on the wagon.

"Did yo' catch him, sah?" asked the man. "Werry conwenient little instrament, dat tullyphome, ain't it? Werry myster'ous, too. Just think o' hearin' a man talkin' a mile or two away, an' yo' unnerstan' him as plain like he was right cluss up."

"Yes, there is a bit of mystery about it, Buck," laughed Jack, who had ideas of his own which he did not care to tell to any one else at the moment.

"There is a switch that those fellows have got on," he said to himself, "and I was not talking to the station any more than I was talking to the President of the United States. Well, there'll be a little fun in this, and I don't mind taking the risk."

Jack had gotten the idea that Herring was on another branch of the Academy telephone, and that the story of the express package was a fiction, meant to mislead him.

He knew enough of such characters as Herring's to satisfy himself that the bully would not rest at one attempt to make trouble, but would try again as soon as convenient.

"If that was not Herring on the wire, I never heard him speak," he said to himself as he ran off toward the house and then to the dormitories.

He was not upstairs more than a minute and then he appeared at the front of the Academy and set off down the road at a good pace.

When he had gone far enough to be out of sight of the building, he took a cut through the woods as directed by the supposed Jones at the little station below.

He walked with both hands in his side jacket pockets, and seemed absolutely carefree and happy, but he had his wits about him, nevertheless.

He suspected an ambush and was ready for it.

He had prepared himself for a hazing on his first night at Hilltop, and he now suspected that another was under way and was prepared for that as well.

Jack Sheldon had been to school before and knew the ways of boys, being one himself, although not of the sort that think it funny to play foolish tricks on others.

He knew many of these, however, and had remedies for nearly all of them, having put more than one hazing party to route by his thorough command of resources.

Although he hurried in through the woods in an apparently careless fashion and seemed to pay no attention to anything, he noticed everything, heard everything, and was ready for instant action.

He was well in the woods, which were quite thick as he went on, although there was a path through them, when his quick ear caught the sound of a sudden rustling in a clump of thick shrub oaks just in front of him, but he went on as if he had heard nothing, turning a little to one side as he reached the clump.

In a moment three or four masked figures suddenly sprang out upon him from two sides of the clump.

Then Jack took his hands out of his pockets.

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