“Well, I reckon you fellows can be thankful you got out of it so easily.”
It was Jack who spoke, addressing his three cousins. It was an hour after the session in Colonel Colby’s office, and the cadets had brought their celebration to an end and were preparing to retire.
Henry Stowell’s confession had come somewhat as a surprise to the owner of the Hall. The sneak had been so wrought up and so fearful of consequences that in the end he had been placed in charge of Professor Grawson, who did what he could to calm the youth.
A doctor had made a careful inspection of the wounds caused by the flying stones and had reported that none of the hurts was serious and that the injured cadets would be as well as ever in a few days. This being so, the colonel had come to the conclusion to let the matter rest as it stood.
“Of course the boys should not have discharged the cannon,” he said to Captain Dale. “But, after all, it was only a schoolboy trick.” He had not forgotten that he had once been a boy himself, and that when a pupil at Putnam Hall with Dick, Tom and Sam Rover he had played many a trick himself.
“I’ll say the colonel is a brick!” declared Andy, with satisfaction. “A real, genuine, dyed-in-the-wool brick!”
“He’s all wool and a yard wide,” added Randy. “The best ever!”
“It’s too bad the cannon had to go up,” said Fred. “I rather think the colonel will hate to lose that piece.”
“I was thinking about that,” said Randy. He turned to the young major. “Do you think, Jack, that your dad could get the authorities at Washington to let him have another cannon? They must have a lot of those old pieces lying around loose.”
“I don’t know; but we might find out,” was Jack’s answer.
News of the explosion was carried to Clearwater Hall, and the Rover girls and their friends became much excited wondering if any of the cadets had been seriously hurt.
“You mustn’t fire off any more cannons,” said Martha, when she saw the boys. “It’s too risky a thing to do.”
“Just as if soldiers don’t have to fire off cannons right along!” ejaculated Andy.
“Yes! But not old pieces that are all rusty,” put in Mary.
The explosion was a topic of interest at the Hall for a number of days, and with this was another topic of equal if not greater importance, and that was, as may be imagined, the loss of the silver trophy.
Early on the morning following the celebration a number of the cadets went out on the lake and dragged a part of the bottom in the hope of bringing up the vase. This attempt proved of no avail, and later attempts during the term were equally unsuccessful. Colonel Colby had Captain Dale and Professor Paul Brice call upon the owner of the steam yacht and see what he had to say concerning the matter.
“I’m not at all to blame—not in the least,” declared the owner of the Jocelyn. “There are half a dozen men at the Outlook Hotel who were on board, and every one of them will testify to the truth of what I am saying.”
“Well, our cadets are willing to testify that it was your fault,” declared Captain Dale, with some sharpness.
“All right! If you think that way, go on and take it to court,” said the owner; and there the matter rested.
The one man who was thoroughly enraged over the matter was Pud Hicks, and he did not hesitate to declare himself.
“The feller who was steerin’ that steam yacht is to blame, and he knows it,” growled the Hall employee. “For two pins I’d go up to the Outlook Hotel and knock the stuffin’ out of him.”
“That would do more harm than good, Pud,” answered Gif. “He could have you arrested for it and perhaps sent to jail for six months for assault and battery.”
“Well, it’s a shame to let him get away with it, ain’t it?”
“So it is,” answered the manager of the ball team. “But I don’t see how it can be helped. If Colonel Colby took it to court they would have as many witnesses on their side as we should have on ours, and the case would probably get nowhere.”
“I believe some of the men on the yacht sympathized with us,” remarked Jack. “One fellow, a young man, looked that way, anyhow. But of course you can’t tell.”
“Perhaps Colonel Colby will have somebody investigate,” said Fred hopefully. “If he can get the right witnesses he can put the screws on that yacht owner.”
There were many of the cadets who did not blame any of the baseball team for the mishap which had deprived the school of the trophy. There were, however, others, perhaps ten or a dozen all told, who laid the blame entirely on Andy and Randy.
“Those twins are forever cutting up,” growled Grimshaw, the fellow who had been hit by one of the stones from the cannon. “For all we know, it might have been nothing but their horseplay that sent the trophy to the bottom of the lake.”
“That isn’t true, Grimshaw!” burst out Spouter indignantly. “It was lost on account of the collision, and in no other way!”
“Well, anyhow, those Rover twins ought to be more careful,” put in another cadet.
“That’s the truth!” added still another. “What business had they to place the trophy on the forward deck, anyhow? Why didn’t they leave it in the bottom of the boat? Then it wouldn’t have gone overboard even when the boat did tip up.”
Some of this talk reached the ears of the Rover boys and it made them all, and especially the twins, feel very bad.
“Gee, I feel like taking some of that money I got from the pirates’ treasure and buying another vase,” remarked Andy. “Only, it wouldn’t be the vase.”
“I’ll pay for a new one quick enough if they’ll get it,” added his twin. The following day, which was Saturday, the four Rover boys and their chums spent the whole afternoon dragging the lake bottom and in diving in a vain hunt for the missing trophy.
With the baseball season at an end, the cadets were forced to give all their attention to their studies. Final examinations were now at hand and those who expected to graduate had to turn in compositions on the subjects assigned to them.
“Gosh! but I’ll be glad when the examinations are over,” remarked Fred, one evening after he had been poring over his books for an hour or more. “My head is fairly splitting with all the stuff I’m expected to remember.”
“And I suppose you think it’s a real picnic for us fellows,” grinned Andy, and then, catching up a sheet of waste paper, he made a small ball of it which he threw at Jack, who was busy with pencil and paper sketching out a composition he had to turn in.
“Quit the horseplay,” came shortly from the young major, and then, after biting the end of his pencil, he continued rather testily: “Hang it all, Andy, I had a brilliant thought I was going to put down and you knocked it clean out of my head.”
“Sorry. What does a brilliant thought look like? If it fell on the floor maybe I can find it for you,” returned the fun-loving Rover, with provoking calmness.
Thereupon Jack leaped up and rushed over, only to find that Andy had slipped under the table, coming up grinningly on the other side. Then ensued a race around the room in which the other two Rovers were jerked off their chairs. A general scrimmage followed in which Andy finally found himself on the floor with the other three on top of him.
“Hi! Let up! What do you think you’re holding down—the rock of Gibraltar?” gasped Andy, trying his best to kick and punch at the same time.
“Will you promise to keep quiet?” questioned the young major, who sat on his stomach.
“I’ll—I’ll be good!” gasped the boy on the floor. “Let up before you cave in all my ribs.” Thereupon he was released and quietness was once more restored so that the lads could continue their studies.
“Wonder what we can do this summer?” said Fred on Sunday afternoon, after the boys, with some other cadets, had attended church at Haven Point. There they had met the girls from Clearwater Hall and two of these, Alice Strobell and Annie Larkins, had announced that they were to take a trip to Europe with their parents.
“I think that’s going to depend on how we make out with our examinations,” answered Jack. “Anyway, when I broached the subject to dad he said we had better put it off until after graduation.”
“Gee, suppose we don’t graduate?” interposed Randy.
“That’s just it! If we don’t, we don’t!” answered Fred. “And that means if we don’t graduate we don’t get any very remarkable vacation. Perhaps they’ll send us up on the farm, to take it easy with Aunt Martha and Uncle Randolph.”
“Wow! Think of spending a whole summer in that out-of-the-way place!” moaned Randy.
The Rover boys had separated from their chums and were walking along a road which ran some distance behind the school. They were in no hurry to get back to the Hall, having half an hour to spare before the mid-day meal. It was unusually sultry, and now the boys heard the distant rumble of thunder and noticed that some heavy clouds were appearing on the horizon to the westward.
“We’re going to have a shower, and that very soon,” announced Jack. “Better hit it up and get to the school before we get wet.”
The boys were making rapid progress and had almost reached a back road running to the outbuildings of the school when the first drops of rain commenced to come down. At the same time they heard the toot of an automobile horn and a roadster carrying two men came whirling along the highway. The four Rovers stepped aside to let the car pass. As it came closer the roadster slowed up. Evidently the two men were strangers to that locality for they looked around as if trying to find some signboard.
“Is this the road to Haven Point?” called out one of the men. As he did so the second man, after a glance at the boys, suddenly turned his face away from them.
“It is,” answered Fred. “Keep straight ahead for about three-quarters of a mile.”
Upon hearing this the driver of the car put on speed and the roadster was soon lost in the distance.
“What’s the matter, Jack?” exclaimed Randy, as the car passed from sight. “What are you staring at?”
“That fellow who was in the roadster! The man who sat alongside the driver!” ejaculated the young major. “Did you notice him?”
“I saw him give one look at us and then turn away,” answered Andy. “Who was he?”
“Unless I was greatly mistaken, it was Carson Davenport,” announced Jack, and his words filled his cousins with astonishment.