“Very good!” he said to himself as he put the paper in his pocket, shut off the light and hurried away. “I don’t know if this was overlooked or if it has just been put here but I am glad I have secured it.”

He mixed in with the boys and left them to go to his room in one of the cottages where he was now quartered only a short time before the hour of retiring.

When ten o’clock struck he waited about ten minutes and, looking out of the window to assure himself that all was dark, he opened the sash and flashed his light in the direction of the river, keeping the light on until an answering flash in the distance told him that his own signal had been seen.

Then he sent a number of long and short flashes and waited a few moments until he saw a steady flash of a few seconds in the direction where he had seen the first.

“All right, he is ready,” he said to himself and then sent a number of flashes as before, holding the light for a longer or shorter period as required to indicate dots and dashes in the Morse code of telegraphy.

As a matter of fact, he was sending a message in this manner to the editor of the News as already arranged between them.

His first long flash was to determine if the editor was at his post and, having ascertained that he was, he announced that he was about to send an important message and then when the answer came that they were ready for him he went on.

Leaving out all unnecessary and obvious words, his message to the News man was as follows:

“Inform bank officials attempt robbery be made to-night. Thought they would keep away from bank account danger.”

To telephone at that time of night would be inconvenient as well as not feasible and Jack had therefore hit upon this method of sending word to Mr. Brooke as being the safest and surest.

He had signaled before with great success, his light being a powerful one and capable of carrying to the river without the least difficulty, providing the night was clear.

“That is all right,” he muttered as he shut off his light, closed the window and turned into bed, having no need of any light and not caring to have any show from the cottage at that hour.

Unknown to him, however, there were those who saw his signals, or a part of them, in addition to the man for whom they were intended.

Peter Herring and Ernest Merritt, returning from a clandestine visit to the village after hours were coming along the road, keeping as much in the shadows as possible, not caring to be seen, when Herring whispered:

“See that light?”

“Yes, what is it? Keeps winking and blinking like a——”

“Sh! some one is signaling. H’m! regular dots and dashes, that’s what they are. H’m! do you know the code?”

“Yes, a little bit. We used to practise it——”

“Watch ’em. H’m! I’ve got some of it. It’s a regular message to——”

The two prowlers advanced as close as they dared and watched the signals, muttering to each other as one word and another was flashed out.

“What do you make it, Pete? ’Keep away from something on account of danger.’ Is that it?”

“Yes, ’keep away from bank,’ that’s it.”

“Keep away from the bank? What bank? The river or the ravine?”

“No, stupid! The bank in the town. The one that was robbed. Are you so stupid you can’t put two and two together? That’s Sheldon’s room where the lights came from. He was warning his father to keep away from the bank on account of danger. Don’t you see? He is not the fine honorable fellow he makes himself out to be.”

“H’m! that gives us another hold on him. If he puts on any airs with us now we’ll spit upon him.”

“Sh! not so loud. We’ve got to get in without being found out. It is not late but it’s after hours and a half minute or a half hour over time is all the same with the doctor.”

“It’s a good thing we were late, Pete. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have seen this high-toned burglar’s son signaling to——”

“No, but keep still,” whispered Herring and the two hurried on in the darkness till they reached the rear of the building where an associate was waiting to let them in at their signal.

Jack went to sleep feeling assured that if the bank robbers made another attempt to rob the Riverton institution they would meet with a warm reception and satisfied that he had done his duty.

In the morning when Bucephalus came with the mail he quite astonished the boys by announcing:

“Dem robbers was at deir wo’k again las’ night, down at de bank on de river an’ one of dem was shooted bad an’ am in jail, so dey tell me down at de station.”

“Tried to rob the bank again, did they?” cried one or two of the boys excitedly.

“Yas’r, but the bank kind o’ suspected dat dey was coming and was prepared for them. The robbers did not suspicion that anything was wrong for the bank was playing ’possum and the robbers was caught at their surreptitious employment and——”

“Which one got away and how many were there, Buck?” asked Herring, who seemed puzzled over something.

“Ah donno sah, Ah don’ keep acco’nt of such obnoxious individuals as bank robbers, sah,” replied Bucephalus, with great dignity.

“Was the fellow with the white mustache caught?”

“Ah donno, sah, and——”

“What is it to you which one was caught and how do you happen to know so much about them, Herring?” asked Harry.

“It is not much to me, of course,” returned Herring, “although I fancy it is a lot to somebody not a hundred miles away.”

“What do you mean by that?” demanded Harry. “You are hinting at something. Out with it if you are man enough.”

Herring flushed scarlet and then, feeling that he was defied, he said doggedly:

“You’d better ask Sheldon how he is interested in the matter.”

“What has he got to do with it?” asked Percival, hotly, having just arrived on the scene.

“What has he got to do with it?” sneered Herring. “Oh, nothing very much. He signaled to the robbers to keep away from the bank last night, that’s all. He must have some interest in them to do that.”

Jack said nothing, although he was clearly agitated and Percival turned to him and asked kindly:

“It is not so, is it, Jack? Say that it is not so.”

“No, it is not so. I signaled to Brooke and told him to warn the bank officials that there was to be another attempt to rob it.”

“You knew this, Jack?” asked Dick.

“Yes, I knew it,” quietly.

“Of course he knew it,” said Herring, with a disagreeable laugh. “Why wouldn’t he know it when he had a meeting with the chief robber yesterday afternoon and told him that he would keep him and his pal posted as to a good time to rob the bank?”

“Peter Herring,” said Jack, turning white but retaining full command of himself, “you are a miserable liar!”

“Oh, am I?” and Herring began to bluster, feeling sure of his ground. “You won’t deny that you had a meeting with a disguised man yesterday afternoon in the woods near the foot of the Academy hill, will you? Will you deny that you telegraphed with your pocket flashlight, ’Keep away from the bank on account of danger?’ You did not do that?”

“That was only a part of my message. It was sent to Mr. Brooke, the editor of the News at Riverton and not to the robbers.”

“Why should he send warning to the robbers, you toad?” demanded Dick, angrily.

“Stop, Dick, never mind,” said Jack, putting a hand on his friend’s arm. “The fellow is lying and he knows it.”

“Oh, I do, hey?” and Herring turned purple with rage. “Maybe I am lying when I tell the boys that you had a secret interview with your father yesterday afternoon and that he is the chief robber, the one with the white mustache, the one that Jones shot at. Maybe you will deny that you have a father?”

“I do deny it,” said Jack, quietly. “My father is dead, as I told you once before.”

“You are a liar!” roared Herring, “and I’ll bet that you are just as bad as this——”

That was as far as he got for in an instant Jack had knocked him down.

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CHAPTER XII

THE TROUBLES OF AN EDITOR

“Sheldon called me a liar and struck me!” blustered Herring. “I am not going to have——”

“We will hear this case later,” said Colonel Bull, severely. “Do as I command or I shall put you all under arrest.”

Some of the boys smiled at the idea of putting the whole school under arrest but they all moved away and were shortly in regular formation going through their customary morning exercises.

After drill Percival went to Jack and said:

“There is some mystery here, old chap. Won’t you tell me what it is?”

“Not now, Dick,” answered Jack. “Some other time, perhaps, but not now. I have no father as I told you once before.”

“But you know this man that claimed——”

“Yes, but I would rather not say any more about it.”

“All right, Jack, I won’t urge you,” and the two went together into the main building and took their seats in the great schoolroom.

The boys had been at their tasks for some little time when the doctor sent in for Jack to come and see him in his study.

Jack left the room and was gone some little time, returning at length with the doctor who said:

“There is no blame attaching to this young gentleman for what has lately happened in the neighboring town and his rank is as high now as it ever was. I wish you to treat him with the same respect that you have always shown him and which he richly deserves.”

“H’m! that does not tell us very much,” muttered Harry to Arthur who sat next to him. “We always did like Jack but the mystery is no more clear than it was before.”

“I trust that there will be no repetition of the scene of this morning,” the doctor went on. “There may have been provocation on both sides but we will not allude further to this and the rest of you will forget it or at any rate not speak of it.”

“That is not so easy,” murmured Arthur to Harry. “It clears Jack in a way, at any rate, and that is enough for me.”

Jack went to his place and the doctor took his seat at his desk and matters went on as usual.

Herring gave Jack the blackest of black looks when next they met but Jack paid no more attention to this than if he had not seen it and Herring muttered something under his breath which Jack did not hear.

“It seems rather strange,” said Percival to some of the boys at recess, “that Wise did not more thoroughly disapprove of the squabble of this morning, but the reason I suppose is that he respected the mystery surrounding Jack and did not care to clear it up by making too great an investigation. Jack says his father is dead and I shall believe him and that liar Herring had better keep his lips closed tight on the subject.”

“You are breaking the doctor’s injunction that we were to say nothing about it, Dick,” laughed Billy Manners, “but I suppose you couldn’t just help it. I know I couldn’t.”

“Well, that is all I am going to say about it,” replied Percival and the matter was not mentioned although, none of the boys could help thinking of it at odd times.

Herring still treated Jack with disdain but was careful to avoid an open rupture, the recollection of the stunning blow which the apparently slight young fellow had given him acting as a deterrent to his wrath so that he avoided the boy as much as possible while he still retained his rancor.

Percival said nothing to Jack about his past life, preferring to let the boy take his own time about clearing up the mystery which was no clearer than before.

“I’ll get even with Sheldon before I leave the Academy,” declared Herring to Ernest Merritt and another of his satellites a day or so after the exciting scene in front of the school. “He can’t walk over me if he has got Dick Percival for his friend.”

“You can’t lick him,” laughed Merritt, who did not have the same fear of his associate that he formerly had. “He has a fist like a rock for all that he looks so slight. You were three or four minutes coming round the other day.”

“Suppose he has?” snarled Herring. “I can train, can’t I? If I send him a challenge to fight, he can’t refuse to take it up and keep his self-respect, can he?”

“Yah! what do you know about self-respect or honor?” laughed Merritt. “You haven’t got either and——”

He was obliged to retreat and leave the sentence unfinished to avoid the swinging blow that Herring aimed at him, the third boy narrowly missing catching it in his stead.

“Here! Look out what you are about!” he roared. “Look where you’re hitting, can’t you?”

“Pete Herring means to do Jack an injury, Art,” said Harry who had seen the three talking together, “and we shall have to watch him.”

“I guess Jack can watch himself,” chuckled Arthur. “He is not afraid of Pete Herring and he is not a boy to be caught napping.”

“But some one threw him down the ravine.”

“Yes, but it won’t happen again and so we won’t have to keep a watch upon this fellow. I’d like to know if it were really Pete who did it. Dick met him and Merritt right after the thing happened and puts it down to one of them.”

“I think it was Pete myself,” said Harry, “and that’s why I think he needs looking after.”

The new number of the Academy magazine was expected to come out in a day or so and promised to be a very interesting one, Percival and the assisting members of the editorial staff having gone over the proofs and found them satisfactory.

There was still some little matter to go in and Jack promised to furnish this, taking or sending it to Mr. Brooke who did the printing.

On Friday afternoon, having written the last of his copy, Jack took Percival’s runabout which he now had permission to do at any time, and set off for Riverton and the office of the News.

He saw Dick as he was leaving and said:

“I am going down with the last of the matter for the magazine. Will you come along?”

“No, I guess not. I am getting up for examination next week. I am a bit behind in my work. You won’t hurt the machine.”

“Very good. Brooke will want to print the paper and have it sent up to-morrow and so I am giving him the last of the stuff for it. It will not take long to set it up and then he can print it to-morrow.”

“All right, I can trust you with it. Guess I don’t have to revise what you write.”

The run to Riverton was made in a short time and Jack left the car outside and went into the office, being somewhat surprised to hear the sound of presses going as he entered.

They were not usually started till the next day but Jack surmised that the editor might be running off some special job to save time and went straight to the inner office where he saw Mr. Brooke pecking away at the typewriter.

“Pretty busy now, Mr. Sheldon,” said the little man, looking up for an instant. “You’ll have to excuse me.”

“But I have brought the last of the copy for the Gazette. Shall I give it to the foreman?”

“The last of it? Why, you sent it this morning and told us to go ahead with the magazine.”

“I sent you copy this morning?” exclaimed Jack in some surprise.

“Yes, this morning or early this afternoon. We set it up and they are now running off——”

“But I sent you nothing, Mr. Brooke. You say they are running off the paper now?”

“Yes, of course. You said you wanted it the first thing in the morning.”

With a vague sense of apprehension that something was wrong and yet unable to say why, Jack went out into the printing office and picked up a newly printed sheet from a pile that lay in front of the press then being worked.

The sheet was not folded and several pages of the matter were visible at once.

Quickly glancing his eye over the sheet he suddenly came upon an article on the first page which had no business there.

It was not more than four or five lines in length and was a bitter and most scurrilous attack on Dr. Wise, signed “Jack Sheldon.”

“Stop the press,” cried Jack to the boy who was feeding the sheets. “Stop the press! This thing must not go in!”

“Hey?” shouted the boy.

“Stop the press!” cried Jack and in a moment he had thrown off the belt and the machine came to a standstill.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Brooke, missing the noise of the press and coming out to learn the reason.

“This!” said Jack, pointing out the offensive article. “Did you allow this to be set up, Mr. Brooke?”

“I? No, indeed. I did not know it was here. If you don’t want it, why did you send it in?”

“I did not. I am not in the habit of signing my nickname to things I write. There was something else on this page and this rubbish has been inserted in its place. You can see that there is a break somewhere. How did you get this? Unlock the forms. It must be taken out at once. Where are the proofs? It will be easy enough to get the right matter to put back or it may be on one of the galleys.”

While the press boy was looking for the missing type and the foreman was unlocking the forms, Jack questioned Mr. Brooke regarding the orders to hasten the printing of the magazine and the identity of the person who had brought them.

“The foreman took the order,” said the editor, “and told me about it. I supposed it was all right. I don’t know who set up the article you naturally object to. If I did I would discharge him.”

“What do you know about this?” Jack asked the foreman who was busy at the forms. “Did you see the copy or the proofs?”

“No, I did not,” the man replied. “I had your order to go ahead with the printing but knew nothing of any extra matter to be set up. I never saw this article before. It has been set up and inserted without my knowledge.”

“Here is some matter on a galley,” said the boy. “Is that what you are looking for?”

“Yes,” said Jack, looking over the type, for Mr. Brooke could not afford a typesetting machine and set his paper by hand. “Put it where it belongs and when the magazines are printed send the bundle direct to me. If anything is in them that I do not approve we will not pay for the printing and in the future will have our work done elsewhere.”

“You do not hold me responsible for this?” asked Brooke.

“No, but I mean to find out who is.”

Back to contents

CHAPTER XIII

TRYING TO FIX THE BLAME

“I have said nothing about what has already happened. I allude to any future happenings. Send me the bundle in the morning.”

“Couldn’t you call for it? That is generally done. It won’t take you any time at all to run down in the car and to-morrow is Saturday and a holiday. With me it is a busy day.”

The editor seemed to be in such real distress that Jack answered:

“I will flash you an answer to-night at ten o’clock by the Morse international.”

The boy and the editor were now in the latter’s sanctum and not in the main office so that there were no hearers to the conversation.

“International, not American?” asked the editor.

“Yes. Every one does not know the International but every local telegrapher knows the American.”

“Yes, but I don’t see why——”

“If some unscrupulous person should send you a message purporting to come from me you would know that it did not if my instructions were not carried out, wouldn’t you?”

“Certainly, but have you any apprehension that——”

“It is possible. I will let you know to-night. I do not want to telephone and will flash you instead.”

“Very good.”

Jack then left the building, entered the car and in a quarter of an hour was at the Academy.

He saw Harry and Arthur on the grounds and called to them to go with him as soon as he put up the car.

The three went to Percival’s room where they found the young fellow busy over a Greek translation.

“Read this, you fellows,” said Jack, distributing the printed sheets he had brought up from the office of the News.

“But, I say, Jack!” exclaimed Percival. “You don’t mean——”

“Why, this is positively awful!” gasped Harry.

“There will be no more Gazettes after this,” wailed Arthur.

“You don’t imagine, any of you, that I wrote that?” asked Jack in his coolest tone. “Here, let me have one of the sheets.”

“But how did it get in then?”

“This is not the revised sheet. In the first place I do not sign my articles ’Jack Sheldon,’ do I?”

“I never knew that you did.”

“And in the next a very careless compositor set this up. It is badly spaced, has many errors and is ungrammatical.”

“Yes, I can see that but I don’t know anything about the spacing.”

“It looks as if a green hand had set it up and that gives me an idea.”

“Yes, but Jack, how did it get in at all?” asked Percival, still in the dark regarding the article.

“It won’t be in the paper to-morrow,” and then Jack told of his accidental discovery of the obnoxious article and what he had done about it.

Percival thought a few minutes and said:

“Some one who doesn’t like you has done this, Jack, or had it done. You don’t suspect Brooke?”

“No, for it would mean the loss of all our patronage to him. He is not such a fool.”

“No, of course not. Who is it then?”

“That I don’t know. There was collusion with some one in the News office, of course, and it will be difficult to find just where it comes in. This thing was done to throw discredit on me and to stop the life of the Gazette.”

“That’s just what it would mean if the thing had gone through.”

“It was done by some one who knows the Academy and the fellows,” declared Harry. “It was aimed at Jack, principally. We know who does not like him here and it should not be a hard matter to find who is responsible.”

“It may be one for all that,” replied Jack. “This is a serious business and the perpetrators will cover their tracks. One thing is certain. You must watch every boy that reads the Gazette to-morrow. Shall I have the bundle sent up here or go after it?”

“We have generally gone after them and done the distributing ourselves in the past,” said Percival. “If we do that now the fellow who engineered this business will be the first to get a copy of the paper and to make it public. Did any one see you leave this afternoon or did any one know why you went to Riverton?”

“No, there was no one around when I left except yourself and only Hal and Art saw me return.”

“Then no one suspects that you have discovered this article and suppressed it. I will take a run down in the morning and get the papers. You were to let Brooke know?”

“Yes, to-night.”

“Good! Tell him that I will call for the papers and to deliver them to no one else.”

“Why don’t you phone him?” asked Arthur. “That will save a lot of trouble.”

“And perhaps cause more,” laughed Jack. “I don’t like telephoning myself. There are too many listeners.”

“I have a wire,” said Dick. “You may use it if you like. I do often and I don’t know that I am bothered much.”

“Just now the old ladies on the party wire are not doing their afternoon gossip,” chuckled Arthur. “They are busy getting supper instead. I don’t believe we would have any trouble. Go ahead, Jack.”

Thus urged Jack stepped to the telephone, took down the receiver and called:

“Let me have one two three Riverton, please. Office of the News, yes. They are not busy?”

“Here’s your party,” said the operator on the other end of the wire.

At the same moment Jack heard some one say, not at the ’phone but evidently in the room where the instrument was kept:

“Well, I done it but I wanted the money.”

Jack recognized the voice as that of the boy in the News office.

“How much did you get?”

This time the speaker was the editor, Mr. Brooke.

“Five dollars.”

“Who paid you? Here, wait, till I answer that confounded call. Hello! who is this?”

“John Sheldon, of Hilltop. Is this Mr. Brooke? Dick Percival will call for the bundle in the morning.”

“Very good. Now then, you rascal——” the voice being less plainly heard, “who was it paid you for doing it?”

“Keep still, boys,” said Jack, turning his head. “I am on the track.”

Back to contents

CHAPTER XIV

“SUSPICION IS NOT PROOF”

“I will, for he must know that I could hear all that was said in the room. That is a common occurrence.”

Jack took down the receiver again and called up the office of the News, presently getting an answer after some delay:

“Line is busy.”

“Call me up when it is not, please,” said Jack, giving the number of Dick’s ’phone.

Then he hung up again and said to the eager boys:

“The line is busy, of course. It always is when you want it particularly. However, they will call me up when it is free.”

“Somebody paid the boy to get this thing into the Gazette,” observed Percival, “and that somebody was an enemy of ours. Who was it?”

“Some one who wants to do Jack an injury,” said Harry. “There are Pete Herring, Ernest Merritt and a few others like them but Herring and his side partner are the most likely ones.”

“It is really narrowed down to those two when you come to it,” suggested Arthur, “for they hate him the worst and are more active than the others.”

“I think we’d better take that for granted,” added Harry, “and work along those lines. I think it was one of them, just as I think it was one of them who pushed Jack off the bank.”

“They may have hired a third party to do the work,” remarked Percival. “They would know that they would be suspected on account of their opposition to Jack and so wish to hide their tracks.”

“That’s all right on the supposition that they are clever fellows,” laughed Harry, “but your rascals are always weak somewhere and trip themselves up. They say it takes a smart man to be a rogue and neither Herring nor Merritt has any medals for brilliancy of intellect.”

“No, and yet they have a certain shrewdness. Detection in a case of this sort would mean expulsion from the Academy and I do not believe either of them would care to face that.”

“No, but all the same I think it was one of them and I believe we will eventually discover this.”

“Aren’t they a long time in calling you up, Jack?” asked Percival with some impatience. “Try them again.”

Jack took up the receiver again, therefore, and called the News office.

After some delay the girl at the central office said:

“They don’t answer. I guess they must have gone home.”

“Central cannot get the News,” said Jack, hanging up. “She thinks everybody must have gone home. It is rather late for a fact,” glancing at his watch. “I had not thought of that.”

“Has Brooke a telephone in his house?” asked Percival.

“I don’t know, I’ll look,” and Jack took down the address book hanging at the side of the instrument.

“I don’t remember that he has,” murmured Percival.

“No, he has not, only one at his office,” reported Jack, after looking in the directory. “We cannot catch him now.”

“That’s too bad,” grumbled Harry. “I would have liked to know positively about the business before supper.”

“I can call him up after supper,” suggested Dick. “He often goes back to the office of an evening. If he knows anything he will tell me, of course.”

“If he does?” cried Harry. “Won’t he?”

“If the boy tells him, but the boy may not.”

“He couldn’t refuse. He’d lose his job if he did.”

“But the boy may not know the person who hired him. All the Hilltop boys are not known in Riverton and it is not positive that one of the boys of the Academy hired him. It may have been a third party.”

The three boys now left the room, leaving Percival alone and not seeing him until supper time.

Later, Jack went to his friend’s room to learn if anything had been heard from the editor.

“I have not been able to get him yet,” reported Dick, “but I will try again later.”

Up to the time of the boy’s retiring for the night, however, nothing had been heard from Brooke and the boys were as much in the dark as ever.

In the morning Dick went in the runabout and got the bundle of papers from Brooke.

“Well, did you find out who hired the boy to put in that outrageous article?” the young fellow asked.

“No, I did not,” said Brooke. “He said he did not know the young man and could not tell him again if he saw him.”

“Where is he now, the boy I mean?”

“I don’t know. He did not come to work this morning and his mother says he has gone up the river to take a job somewhere else.”

“Did the foreman see the man who gave the order supposedly from Mr. Sheldon?”

“He says he had the order by telephone and never saw the copy which he was told would be sent in. Please look over the papers now to see if they are all right.”

Dick read over one of the magazines, compared it hastily with a dozen others and found that no extraneous matter had been introduced.

“Yes, they are all right,” he said, “and we will pay you for them but I would very much like to find out who was juggling with them. It is a queer thing all around. Wouldn’t the foreman know Jack’s voice?”

“He says he never thought to question it when some one said over the wire that he was Sheldon. He never had to do with your friend anyhow. I did most of the talking.”

“But didn’t you think it odd to send such a message over the ’phone?”

“I was pretty busy at the time working at the paper and we had some job work besides so that I left things to the foreman. He is rather hard of hearing and cannot distinguish voices very well. You have to yell at him to make him understand but the more noise there is in the office the better he can hear.”

“Well, I don’t suppose we will see the boy again and I wouldn’t know him if I did see him. Jack might, for he remembers faces. What’s the boy’s name, anyhow?”

“Joe Jackson. He is red headed and squints. He always did get on my nerves and I am not sorry that he has gone but I shall have to find another.”

“Well, the papers are all right and we will give you the job again but I hope we will not have any more such trouble. You can trust to Jack to see if there is anything wrong, however.”

Dick took the papers, put them in the car and started for the Academy, reaching which in something less than half an hour, he found a big crowd of the Hilltop boys waiting for him.

They all clamored for the papers and Dick rapidly distributed them, giving Jack a significant look to indicate that everything was all right and that the conspirators, whoever they might be, would be greatly disappointed when they examined the Gazette.

Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners and Jack himself kept their eyes upon the suspected boys to see how the perusal of the magazine affected them.

“Oh, I say, fellows, here’s something rich!” Arthur heard Merritt say as he opened the paper. “Let me read—why, that’s nothing.”

“He is one of the disappointed ones,” thought Arthur, “but he may have only had knowledge of the thing rather than participated in it.”

Harry kept his eyes upon Herring when the latter began to look at the paper and noticed that he seemed disappointed for he turned page after page evidently without finding what he wanted.

“There’s nothing in that!” he sputtered in disgust. “It is not worth the paper it is printed on and wouldn’t be if it were printed on the worst kind of brown wrapping paper. I won’t subscribe for it again.”

“What is the matter with it?” asked Harry.

“There’s nothing in it, that’s what.”

“You mean that you expected to find something that is not——” and then Harry caught a warning look from Jack and stopped short.

Herring flushed crimson, however, and looked guilty, throwing the paper on the ground with an angry exclamation and walking hurriedly off the campus.

“That’s one of the fellows if not the principal one,” said Harry to Jack with a triumphant tone. “I have always suspected him.”

“Suspicion is not proof, Harry,” answered Jack, “and we must have more evidence before we can convict him.”

“Just wait till we do, then. I wouldn’t be in his slippers at the time, not for a hundred dollars!”

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CHAPTER XV

FUN AND EXCITEMENT

The Gazette was circulated among the boys of the Academy and also sent to their parents and to many other schools which exchanged with them, so that it had a considerable circulation.

In a short time there were complimentary notices of the latest number of the Gazette in several of the school periodicals, all of them noticing its improvement and speaking highly of the new editor.

“Somebody thought that the Gazette would be a dead one,” laughed Billy Manners one afternoon when reading over one of the other papers with a number of his chums, “but it will be livelier than ever now. Jack is just the boy to run it and make it one of the best there is.”

Billy Manners was one of the chief funmakers of the Academy, although he was a good student as well and stood high in his classes.

He was fond of a joke even if it happened to be at his own expense but more often it was at that of some one else.

Billy and the others were so much interested in reading the complimentary notice of the Gazette that they failed to observe the coming of Colonel Bull, the military instructor of the Academy.

Now the Colonel was a bit of a stickler for ceremony and the boys were always obliged to salute him when they met him.

Failing to notice his approach, however, he was upon them before they saw him and the only warning of his coming was the hearing of a sharp command:

“Attention! Where are your manners, you cubs? Salute me this instant and keep your eyes about you another time.”

The boys were at attention in a moment and gave the salute in the customary stiff and wooden fashion to which they were used.

“What are you reading?” demanded the Colonel. “Some sentimental rubbish, I suppose. Let me see it.”

Billy handed over the magazine and the Colonel looked at it, being obliged to put on his glasses in order to read it, however.

“H’m! foolish but not as bad as I thought. Now you may go but at another time keep your eyes about you. Break ranks!”

The boys assumed a natural attitude and Billy stooped to pick up the paper which the Colonel had thrown contemptuously upon the ground.

Billy was not a ventriloquist but he did have a way of altering his voice and now, feeling a bit sore at the pompous Colonel and desiring to be revenged suddenly shouted in an ear-piercing tone:

“Look out! Mad dog!”

At once the Colonel, who was fat and more than forty, let out a sudden ejaculation and bolted for the nearest tree.

His hat flew off, his glasses dangled at the end of their cord and thrashed around like mad and the colonel’s short, fat legs ate up space in a most remarkable manner.

There was a tree in the way which the colonel had not noticed and he ran into it with considerable force, knocking off his wig which the boys, up to that time, had never seen except upon his head.

He got up in great haste, grabbed his wig from the ground, clapped it on his head hind side before and at once started to climb the tree.

The sight of the short, fat, bald drillmaster, with his wig awry, endeavoring to climb a little tree was too much for the dignity of the boys and they burst into a roar of laughter.

They had no thought of consequences, no fear of future punishment, but just laughed as hard as they could.

Then there was a sudden cry of alarm around a turn in the road.

“Hallo! what’s that?” cried Arthur.

“Great Scott! there is a mad dog after all!” gasped Harry.

A number of the smaller boys of the Academy suddenly appeared in full flight pursued by a panting, yelping, foam-covered dog whose every look showed that he was mad.

“H’m! the alarm was not given for nothing after all,” muttered Billy, looking for a place of safety.

Harry and Arthur turned toward the Academy and ran as fast as they could, thinking nothing of fun now.

“Here, here, I must do something for those kids!” cried Billy, pausing in his flight.

There was some one else ready to do something for them, however.

The dog had almost reached the hindmost and smallest of the boys when Jack Sheldon suddenly came out of one of the cottages.

He saw the danger of the boys in an instant and plunged forward as if making a tackle in a game of football.

The dog was right in front of him at this moment and six feet away.

Suddenly the weight of a boy of a hundred and twenty-five pounds was dropped upon the dog’s back with a force that laid him flat and gave him a start for which he was not looking.

In an instant he was flat on his belly on the ground with all the breath and the greater part of his desire to injure some one knocked out of him.

He was able to give one yelp and then Jack suddenly sprang off his back, gave him a contemptuous shove with his foot and said:

“Get out of here and go about your business!”

With his tail between his legs and a yelp of fright the dog suddenly turned and went down the road as fast as he had come up.

“Well! that was some way of dealing with a mad dog!” said Billy, with a laugh. “You knocked all the fight out of him in a jiffy.”

“Has he gone for sure?” asked one of the small boys of Jack.

“Yes, and you need not be afraid. Whose dog was it and what brought him up here?”

“H’m, has he gone?” asked the Colonel who had reached the crotch of the tree, fortunately not far from the ground and now turned a very red and sweaty face upon the group below.

“Yes, sir,” said Jack, saluting and at the same time having the greatest difficulty to refrain from smiling or even laughing outright at the comical appearance of the doughty warrior.

“Go and enquire more about the matter, Sheldon,” said the Colonel and Jack went away, smiling broadly now but fortunately holding in his laugh.

“He wants a chance to get down from the tree, adjust his wig and get back his dignity,” whispered Billy, who went off with Jack.

“Yes, but how did he get there?”

“It was one of my jokes and I’ll get a wigging if he finds it out,” chuckled Billy. “There wasn’t any mad dog at first but I made him think there was. You should have seen him climb that tree, Jack. It would’ve delighted your heart. He won’t be scoring us again in a hurry but if there had not been a mad dog I guess I would have caught it.”

“Be careful how you play jokes on the Colonel, Billy,” said Jack, when he heard the whole story and laughed over it. “There are some persons at whom it is not safe to poke fun and Colonel Bull is one.”

“He forgot to put the last letter to his name, that’s all,” laughed Billy, “for he is a bully all right, but your advice is good and I will take it—or at least I will try.”

“That is well put,” said Jack, dryly, “for I don’t believe you could help making jokes if you did try.”

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CHAPTER XVI

AN ANONYMOUS ACCUSATION

“Only by courtesy. He would have stayed on till he was a hundred years old if he could, the pay being a consideration, but was retired some twenty years ago and now earns his living by instructing us boys and by occasional articles to the educational magazines.”

“It was all I could do to keep from laughing and I can imagine what Billy would get if the Colonel knew how he had been humbugged. He can be a very disagreeable person when he is aroused, I imagine.”

The boy had not the slightest apprehension of having any trouble with the drillmaster, always treating him with the respect due his position and giving no cause for any complaint on the other’s part.

The term was progressing smoothly, the majority of the Hilltop boys attending sedulously to their duties and trying to make a good record, the exceptions being very few, even some of the disagreeable set like Herring and his cronies working with considerable vigor.

Jack was already high in his classes and it looked as if he might be still higher before the end of the term for he was working with a purpose and meant to finish as near the top as possible.

“If you don’t see Jack Sheldon at the head of his class by the end of the term I shall miss my guess,” said Harry to Percival and one or two others one afternoon as some of the boys were taking a stroll through the woods near the bottom of the hill.

“I would not mind seeing him there even if he passes me,” said Dick. “Jack is a good fellow and if he can win a scholarship it will mean much to him. He deserves it at any rate.”

“But he is not in your classes,” said Harry.

“No, but he might make a better average and next year he might be up with me and then I should have to look out. I was not thinking of just now alone.”

The boys passed on, not knowing that Herring and Merritt were hiding behind some bushes within easy hearing.

“That gives me an idea,” muttered Herring when the others had gone. “I can smash Sheldon’s chances and I am going to do it.”

“How will you manage it?” asked Merritt.

“You leave it to me,” with a chuckle. “I may want you to help me a bit but I’ll put a spoke in his wheel all right and the doctor won’t admire him as much as he does when I get through with him.”

“Look out that the thing does not fall through like that matter of cooking the Gazette to suit yourself,” sneered the other.

“You were as much in that as I was,” snarled Herring, “and if you split on me you will hurt yourself.”

“I ain’t going to split,” whined Merritt, “but I know when a fellow makes a mess of a thing. You came near giving yourself away on that.”

“Me? It was you that did it. Some of the fellows suspect you but they can’t prove anything.”

“Well, never mind that. How are you going to fix Sheldon this time?”

“I’ll let you know. I’ve an idea but I want to get it in shape so that there won’t be any slip. He won’t come out on top nor anywhere near it when this thing gets to going.”

“All right, I’ll help you for I don’t like Sheldon any better than you and I’d like to spoil his chances.”

One morning a day or so after this Dr. Wise received an anonymous letter written and addressed in typewriting and posted at Riverton, which caused him some little uneasiness.

During the morning session when all of the boys were in the great schoolroom, he called for attention and said, evidently with the greatest reluctance:

“It is not my custom to notice unsigned communications but I have one here which I feel must be investigated in common justice to the person accused. I will read it.”

The boys looked at each other, wondering what was coming and the doctor read the half sheet of note paper which he held in his hand.

“J. S. has a pony in his desk. You had better search it. This may account for his standing in class.”

The boys all understand that by a “pony” was meant a translation of some work in one of the dead languages which they were studying at the time.

“This is a serious accusation,” the doctor went on. “What boy has the initials J. S.?”

“I have, sir,” spoke up Jack, promptly. “My name is John Sheldon.”

“So have I!” cried the other boy. “I am Jasper Sawyer. Maybe it’s me he means.”

“That’s nothing, my name is James Sharpe,” said another.

“And I answer to the name of Jesse W. Smith!” piped up one of the smallest boys in the Academy.

There was a titter among the boys and Harry whispered to Arthur:

“Somebody has made a miscalculation here. I wonder who it is?”

“Smith is out of the question,” remarked the doctor. “You are not studying Greek or Latin, are you, Smith?”

“No, sir,” and the boys laughed again for Jesse W. Smith was not even in the Latin grammar as yet.

“Have any of the rest of you bearing the initials J. S. a translation in your desks?” the doctor asked. “I will take your word for it.”

“No, sir,” answered Sawyer and Sharpe.

“I have none, sir,” said Jack, “but if you wish to search my desk you are at perfect liberty to do so. In fact, I will search it myself.”

“That is not necessary, Sheldon,” replied the doctor quickly, but Jack was already hunting through his desk, taking out everything at hand in a rapid fashion.

“Of course it is not!” sputtered Harry. “No one accuses him of——”

“Here is a translation, sir,” said Jack, suddenly, when he came to the bottom of his desk, “but I need not tell you that it does not belong to me. It is a Cæsar.”

“Sheldon has been out of Cæsar all this term,” exclaimed Percival. “It is absurd to think that the pony——”

“Might it have belonged to you at some time, Sheldon?” asked the doctor, not noticing Dick’s interruption. “I do not say that it did, you understand.”

“No, sir, it might not. I never used a translation in my life and never will!”

Jack was hurriedly examining the book as he spoke and now noticed that the fly leaf was torn out, evidently in haste, the edges being ragged and a bit of writing on one of them.

“This bo——” was on one line and “erty of” on the next.

“I give you my word of honor, Doctor, that this is not my property,” said Jack, “but I would like to keep it for the present,” and he put the little book in his pocket.

“Very well, Sheldon,” said Dr. Wise. “You are clearly exonerated from this charge.”

“But Jack has something up his sleeve as well as in his pocket, believe me,” whispered Billy Manners to Arthur.

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