"But we can't alter the time or place of the feed," explained Dutch.

"It's too late to do that. Anyway, there's no danger once we get inside the hall, for we've arranged to have the doors bolted and braced and guards posted. The only danger is that they'll get at some of us before we get to the place or that they'll get at the eating stuff in some way and put it on the blink."

"I shouldn't think there'd be much danger of that," spoke Tom. "Won't the man who is going to supply it look out for that end?"

"I s'pose he will," admitted Dutch, "so the main thing for us to do is to see that we get safely to the hall. I think we'd better not meet down near the bridge, as I proposed first. You know, we were all going in a body. I think now the best way will be for us to stroll off by ones and twos. Then there won't be any suspicion. The sophs will be on the watch for us, of course, but I think we can fool them."

"Then you mean for each one of us to get to the hall as best he can?"

asked Sid.

"That's it," replied Dutch.

"Some fellows did that one year," put in Ford Fenton, "but the sophs caught them just the same. My uncle says----"

He paused, for the group of lads about him, as if by prearranged signal, all put their hands over their ears and all began talking at once loudly.

"Hu!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ford. "You think that's funny, I guess."

"Not as funny as what your uncle might have said," remarked Sid, who some time previously had planned to have his chums give this signal of disapproval the moment Ford mentioned his relative.

"Well, I guess it's all understood," went on Dutch. "We'll have a sort of go-as-you-please affair until we get to the hall in Haddonfield."

"I hear Langridge isn't coming," said Ford.

"Who told you?" asked Sid.

"Why, he did. I asked him if he was going to be on hand, and I told him about a dinner where my uncle said----"

"I guess he doesn't want to come because he is afraid your uncle will be there," declared Tom with a good-natured laugh.

"More likely because the dinner isn't going to be sporty enough for him," was the opinion of Dutch. "Well, we don't want anybody that doesn't want to come. But I've got to go and attend to some loose ends.

Now mind, mum's the word, fellows, not only as regards talk, but don't act so as to give the sophs a clue. See you later," and he hurried off.

Few in the freshman cla.s.s did themselves justice in recitations that day from too much thinking about the fun they would have at the dinner that night. Even Tom fell below his usual standard, and as for Sid, his rendering of Virgil was something to make Professor Tines (who was a good cla.s.sical scholar, whatever else he might be) shudder in anguish.

But Sid didn't mind.

"I tell you what it is, old man," spoke Sid to Tom that evening as they prepared to leave for the spread, "we'd better go it alone, I think."

"Just what I was about to propose. If we leave here together, some sneaking soph will be sure to spot us. Will you go first or shall I?"

"You'd better take it first. There's a hole in one of my socks I've got to sew up. I never saw clothes go the way they do when a laundry gets hold of 'em."

"Can you darn socks?"

"Well, not exactly what you'd call _darn_," explained Sid. "I just gather up a little of the sock where the hole is and tie a string around it. It's just as good as darning and twice as quick. I learned that from a fellow I roomed with at boarding school. But go ahead, if you're going."

It was quite dark now and Tom, after a cautious look around the entrance of the dormitory, to see if any soph.o.m.ores were lurking about, stole silently down toward the river. He intended to take the road along the stream, cross the bridge and board a trolley for Haddonfield, which plan would be followed by a number of the freshmen.

Tom was almost at the bridge when he saw a number of dark shadows moving about near the structure.

"Now, are they sophs or our fellows?" he mused as he cautiously halted.

He thought he recognized some of his cla.s.smates and went on a little further.

"Here comes one!" he heard in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Tom stopped. It was so dark he could not tell friends from foes. But he knew a test. A countersign had been agreed upon.

"What did the namby-pamby say?" he asked.

Back came the answer in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:

"Over the fence is out!"

It was the reply that had been arranged among the freshmen. Confident that he was approaching friends, Tom advanced. A moment later he found himself clasped by half a dozen arms.

"We've got one!" some one cried, and he recognized the voice of Gladdus.

"Take him away, fellows, and wait for the next. I guess the freshies won't have so many at their spread as they think!"

"Kidnapped!" thought Tom disgustedly as he was hustled away in the darkness. "Now they'll have the laugh on me and some of the other fellows all right. They have discovered our countersign or else some one gave it away."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ESCAPE

After the first shock of surprise was over Tom struggled against being taken away by his captors. He almost succeeded in breaking loose, but so many came at him, crowding close around him, that by sheer weight of numbers they formed an impa.s.sable barrier.

"It's all right, freshie, you're hooked good and proper, so don't try to get away," advised a tall youth whom he recognized as Battersby.

"All right," agreed Tom good-naturedly, though he by no means intended to give up trying to escape. But he would bide his time. "Where are you going to take me?" he asked.

"Oh, a good place. You'll have plenty of company. Take him along, fellows. I'll go back and help capture some more. The idea of these freshies thinking they could pull off a dinner without us getting on to it. The very idea!" and Battersby laughed sarcastically. He and Gladdus had fully recovered from the electric shocks and were probably glad of a chance to make trouble for the freshmen.

Tom, in the midst of half a dozen soph.o.m.ores, was half led, half pushed along a dark path, over the bridge and then down a walk which extended through the woods. He recognized that he was being taken toward a little summer resort on the sh.o.r.es of the lake.

Once he thought he saw a chance to break loose as the grips on his arms loosened slightly, but when he attempted it he was handled so roughly that he knew the soph.o.m.ores had made up their minds to hold on to him at any cost.

"You're our first prisoner," explained one lad, "and for the moral effect of it we can't let you get away. You'll have company soon."

A little later Tom was thrust into a small shanty. He recognized the place as one that had been used for a soda water and candy booth at the picnic grounds, but which shack had not been opened this season yet, though others near it were in use. There was nothing doing at the grounds on this night and the resort was deserted.

"Lock the door," exclaimed some one as Tom was thrust inside. "Then a few of us will have to stand guard and the others can go back and help bring up the rest."

Tom staggered against some tables and chairs in the dark interior of the shack. He managed to find a place to sit down.

"We're a bright lot of lads," thought the scrub pitcher, "to be taken in after this fashion. We should have stuck together and then we could have fought off the sophs. But it's too late now. I wonder if Sid was caught?"