CHAPTER XXIV.
A TERRIBLE REVENGE.
You could not imagine seven more altogether delighted lads if you tried for a month. Once they had made sure that the enemy was gone for certain they swiftly went wild. Their plot had worked so perfectly! And so suddenly and completely! They danced about and hugged each other and yelled for joy—all of them but the frugal Indian, who was busily stowing away his double share of the provisions.
“We’re perfectly safe,” laughed Mark. “For the yearlings won’t dare return.”
That proved to be a correct guess. Bull and his crowd were so horror-struck and subdued by that terrible ending of their fun that they stole back to camp like so many whipped curs.
And meanwhile just make believe those wicked plebes didn’t go for the victuals. There was enough left for twice as many, even if they had all been like Indian. Even the Parson, who usually didn’t believe in “irrational gourmandizing,” forgot his dignity so far as to take a pumpkin pie in one hand and a piece of fruit cake in the other and try to eat them both at once, which he found almost as difficult as the impossible feat of drinking two glasses of water together.
For the next five minutes everybody devoted himself strictly to the duty of eating, excepting when some one of them would find it necessary to sink back on the ground and explode in laughter. In that condition we must leave them and return to camp, where interesting things were happening, things which were destined to reproduce on that ill-fated picnic ground another exact reproduction of “Belshazzar’s Feast.”
Bull Harris and his companions stole into camp about as disgusted and frightened a lot of yearlings as ever were anywhere. They hurried past the sentry without even stopping to signal him. For what did they care now? They were expelled, all of them! They stood by the camp-fire for a few moments disconsolately, whispering together. And then they scattered to their tents and proceeded to pass the long, weary night as best they could.
Each of the tents in “Camp Lookout” held two occupants. Bull and Gus Murray tented together, and they went in, sat down and then stared at each other lugubriously. Neither of them said anything for some time, for neither had anything to say.
“How do you suppose Allen found it out?” whispered Bull, at last.
“I don’t know,” growled the other. “He saw us go out, I guess. Or, perhaps somebody told him; Mallory for instance.”
“It would be just like him,” returned Bull, though he knew that Murray didn’t mean that remark seriously. “Confound it, Gus, do you know what makes me dread to get fired for this is that idea of having that confounded plebe gloat over it! Plague take the luck! I could——”
Bull stopped just then; there was a startling interruption. Merry Vance’s sallow face peered into the tent, and Merry was panting with excitement.
“What’s the matter?” cried Bull.
“Allen—Allen, man!”
“What about him?”
“He’s in his tent!”
“What!”
“Yes! I heard him. I went and looked in! He was asleep! It wasn’t Allen that we saw!”
“For Heaven’s sake!” gasped Bull. “What do you mean?”
“I tell you that it wasn’t Allen! What are you gaping at me that way for? Allen hasn’t been out of his tent. The sentry told me so!”
Bull and Gus Murray were thunderstruck. If the world had been coming to an end just then they couldn’t have been more confounded.
“Not out of his tent!” they gasped. “Then, in Heaven’s name! who did we see?”
“I don’t know; but it wasn’t Allen.”
“But he had his uniform, man! And none of the other tacs have come up from the Point yet! He’s the only one here; it must have been Allen!”
Vance was just as much puzzled as his friends. But suddenly a ray of light struck him.
He leaped up with a furious imprecation.
“What is it?” cried Bull.
But Vance was gone. He had dashed away in the darkness, through the camp. A second later he bounded up back, and wild with rage.
“It’s Mallory!” he exclaimed.
“Mallory!”
“Yes. He’s not in his tent! He’s stolen Allen’s clothes and fooled us!”
And as Bull leaped to his feet, his face was livid with passion. He shook his fist at the sky.
“By Heaven!” he cried, “he’ll pay for this if I have to kill him. Call the fellows! Quick! quick!”
* * * * *
We must go back to the scene of the feast. The incidents narrated above had taken but a very few minutes indeed, and the feast was still under way. In fact, the Parson had scarcely finished his pumpkin pie and Indian had eaten but three of them. So you may guess that the banquet had barely gotten started.
Mark got up to propose a toast. They had no wine, but fruit cake was just as good for toast, so Dewey said. Mark was as unsteady on his legs as if he had been drinking; it was all from too much laughing, however.
“Fellow citizens!” he began. “Fellow citizens of Athens, we have assembled upon this most auspicious occasion to consummate one of the most glorious deeds ever signed by a notary public. Fellow citizens——”
“Hooray!” roared Texas.
“Not so loud,” laughed Mark, “or you’ll have the camp awake. And if that should happen while I’ve got Allen’s uniform, there’d be a terrible——”
And then Mark stopped just as Bull Harris had done! He started back in just as much horror, too. His companions leaped to their feet in consternation. It was the second handwriting on the wall!
The cause of the alarm came in the form of a noise. It came from Camp Lookout.
“Help help!”
And a moment later a perfect roar that shook the woods, seeming to come from a hundred throats, broke on the ears of the horrified Seven.
It was the yearlings’ revenge!
Mark sprang forward with a cry.
“They’ve alarmed the camp!” he shouted. “The camp! We’ll be discovered! We’re lost! Good Heaven!”
It was a terrible moment. The lads gazed at each other in dismay. They were paralyzed. There would be an inspection in camp! And they would be missed! And Allen’s uniform!
A second later Mark whirled about and dashed into the woods.
“Come on!” he cried. “Come on! We may not be too late!”
It was a faint hope, but they tried it. Over the ground they flew like mad, stumbling, plunging. Shouts and yells still came from the camp to urge them to yet greater haste. And then suddenly they burst out of the woods and Camp Lookout lay before them.
There was visible then a scene so utterly extraordinary and incomprehensible that it taxes the pen to describe it. Surely never at a military encampment had such a sight been beheld before. Terrified though those seven plebes were they could scarcely keep from roaring as they saw it.
The yells—which, of course, had come from Bull and his crowd—had created the wildest imaginable confusion. Cadets had leaped up and rushed out of their tents. And Lieutenant Allen had sprung to his feet and began groping about in the darkness for his clothing. Naturally he had not found it, and hence the extraordinary scene.
His cries of rage—for when he realized that some one had had the audacity to steal his clothing and then awaken the camp, you may guess how he raved—had brought cadets and officers to his tent a-flying, in their underclothes. And there they stood huddled together in amazement, while the furious officer, torn between a desire to rush out and murder some one and a sense of dignity which forbade him to appear before his cadets as he was, raged in his tent like the wrathful Achilles and howled for vengeance.
Meanwhile what were the plebes doing? Can you guess? The sentries had all deserted their posts and rushed to see what was the matter with the “tac.” Those seven mischievous plebes dashed into camp with the speed of a whirlwind, plunged into their tents and flung off their clothes.
And now there remained only the telltale uniform, the uniform which had caused delay and saved them so far.
Mark’s tent lay right behind the officers, and suddenly when no one was looking a gun was poked out. On the end of the gun a bayonet! On the end of the bayonet a uniform! And it was quietly tossed over against the back of the tent.
A moment later some one saw it.
“It’s poking under the canvas of your tent!” was the cry.
And Allen, red with rage and chagrin, yanked up the cloth and pulled in his mislaid clothing.
A minute later the long roll sounded. The cadet adjutant called off the names and faced and saluted as the unfortunate tac appeared.
“All present, sir,” said he.
The Banded Seven were safe once more, but it had been a close shave.