"He"ll wake the whole school if he makes much more noise," remarked Jack. "Be prepared to skip out when the time comes."
"I"ll have somebody arrested for this," howled Codfish, as he still struggled with the mouse that was up his leg. "This is beastly! Oh, dear! what in the world shall I do?"
He gave a savage tug at his pajamas, and the next instant there was a tearing sound and the cloth parted at the knee. Out leaped the mouse, to disappear quickly under the bed.
Panting from his excitement, and muttering to himself, the sneak of the school, making sure that the shoes were now both empty, slipped his feet into them and then hurried toward the clothing closet located in a corner. He intended to get a baseball bat with which to either kill the mice or chase them out into the hallway.
"Now watch," whispered Randy. "Here is where he gets another surprise."
Stowell flung open the door of the closet in a hurry. As he did this he found himself confronted by the figure of a Colby Hall cadet. The intruder had a handkerchief tied over his face.
"Hi! what are you doing here?" cried Stowell in sudden surprise. "You"re the fellow who"s playing the trick on me, eh? I"ll fix you, you see if I don"t!" And then struck by a sudden idea, Stowell slammed shut the door of the closet and locked it. "Now I"ve got you, and you"ll suffer for this nonsense--you see if you don"t!" he shouted.
"Gee! this is the best yet!" burst out Andy in a low voice. "I didn"t think he"d lock that dummy in."
"We only put it there to scare him," explained Randy. "It"s one of his old suits stuffed out. We thought it might fall out on him when he opened the door. But I guess it"s better the way it is," he chuckled.
"Where did you get those mice?" Gif questioned.
"Oh, that was easy," answered Andy. "I met Pud Hicks, the janitor"s a.s.sistant, this noon and he was telling me of a whole lot of mice he had caught down in the barn during the past week. He had the bunch in a box, and he said he was going to take them down to the river and drown them.
I knew where the box was, and getting them was easy."
By this time Codfish had slipped into his trousers, and now he put on his coat.
"He"s going downstairs to tell Captain Dale or one of the professors!"
exclaimed Jack in a low voice. "We had better get out of here."
The young captain"s advice was followed, and all lost no time in leaving the fire escape and entering the school building. They were just in time to see the door to Stowell"s room flung open and the sneak hurry downstairs.
"I must see what he does!" cried Randy, who could never let any portion of a joke get away from him, and he hurried down the stairs after Stowell.
Captain Mapes Dale was in the office of the school writing a letter when Stowell burst in upon him with scant ceremony.
"Oh, Captain Dale, won"t you please come quick?" cried the little sneak, all out of breath with excitement. "Somebody put about a million mice in my room, and I"ve got the fellow locked up in my clothes-closet."
"A million mice in your room, Stowell!" exclaimed the captain, leaping to his feet. "Surely you must be mistaken. You don"t mean quite that many," and a faint smile crossed his features.
"Well, there are a whole lot of them, anyway," returned Codfish. "When I opened my bed they leaped right out at me and they ran all over the floor, and then one of them went up the leg of my pajamas and bit me.
See how I had to tear my pajamas to get him out?" and he showed the spot.
"And you say you have the culprit locked up in your closet?" demanded Captain Dale.
"Yes, sir. Won"t you please come up and see who it is before he has a chance to break out? Of course he"ll try to get away if he can. He won"t want to be caught."
"Yes, I"ll go up immediately. Are the mice up there still?"
"Yes, sir. I shut the door on them so they couldn"t get away."
"Then I had better call the janitor and his a.s.sistant first, so that we can round up the million mice, more or less."
Fortunately Pud Hicks was not around the building, so could not be summoned. But Job Plunger, the school janitor, was at hand, and so was Bob Nixon, the school chauffeur.
"I guess I know where those mice came from," said Nixon, with a grin.
"Hicks caught a lot of them down at the barn. He was going to drown "em down at the river to-morrow. Somebody must have got hold of "em and put "em in Stowell"s room."
Nixon and Plunger followed Captain Dale and Stowell to the cadet"s room.
In the meanwhile Randy had rejoined the other Rovers and their chums, and likewise rapped on half a dozen doors as he pa.s.sed, and as a consequence fully a score of cadets were made aware that something unusual was happening.
"What"s the row?"
"Is it a fire?"
"Are they going to celebrate the victory over Columbus Academy?"
"If anything good to eat is being pa.s.sed around count me in."
"Codfish is holding a celebration!" cried Andy from around a corner and in a disguised voice. "Everybody watch for something good from Codfish"s room."
The appearance of Captain Dale with Stowell only whetted the curiosity of the a.s.sembled students, and from half-closed doors they watched the head of the school and the little sneak approach the room. The door was left open, and a moment later out popped one mouse, quickly followed by another.
"h.e.l.lo, there"s a mouse!"
"Hi, catch those fellows!" yelled Bob Nixon, who was on hand with a trap, followed by Job Plunger with a box.
The school janitor was quite deaf, and so could hear nothing of what was going on.
The escape of the two mice was a signal for the a.s.sembling students to begin a chase after the rodents. Then another mouse came out into the hallway, and various things were thrown at the scurrying animal.
"Here, here! Stop that noise out there!" commanded Captain Dale. "There is no sense in making such a racket over a few little mice."
As he spoke the head of the school strode to the closet door and unlocked it.
"Now come out here and give an account of yourself," he said, as he threw the door open.
"Now you are going to catch it for playing such a trick on me," exulted Codfish.
The figure in the closet, of course, did not move, and Captain Dale reached forth to pull the offending cadet into the room. But then he stopped short, and something of a smile crossed his face.
"What is the matter with you, Stowell--are you blind?" he demanded.
"Blind?" queried the sneak of the school, bewildered. "What do you mean?"
"Can"t you see that this is only a stuffed figure? And it hasn"t any head on, either; only a handkerchief tied around some underwear with a cap stuck on top."
"Oh, Captain Dale, you don"t mean it!" cried Codfish, and fell back against the wall, too upset to say more.
"But I do mean it," went on the military man, and reached for the dummy, which immediately toppled over on the floor, the head and cap rolling in one direction and the legs and shoes in another. "It"s nothing but an old uniform stuffed out."