The Putnam Hall Cadets: or, Good Times in School and Out

Such were a few of the questions which Jack, Andy, and Pepper asked when they found themselves confronted by the eight masked figures on the lonely forest road. Each of the masked persons was armed with a stout stick.

“Stop, do you hear?” came from one of the crowd, and stepping forward, he caught the horse by the head.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Jack.

“It means that you must consider yourself prisoners,” was the cold reply.

“Prisoners!”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?” queried Pepper.

“That remains for you to find out. Step down out of that carriage and be quick about it.”

“Perhaps we won’t step out,” said Andy.

“If you don’t, you’ll get hurt.”

“I know them!” shouted Jack. “They must be Pornell students. Roy Bock, I know your voice.”

“I am not Roy Bock,” was the answer, in a disguised voice.

“You are. What are you going to do with us?”

“We are going to give you a lesson,” growled Roy Bock, for it was really he who had spoken. “Come down out of that buggy!”

As Bock spoke one of the boys leaped forward and secured the whip and two others pulled away the reins. There was no help for it, and Jack, Pepper, and Andy had to leap out. They were at once surrounded.

“This is a pretty high-handed proceeding,” said Jack, in a steady voice. “Don’t you know we can put you in the hands of the law for it?”

“Bah!” growled one of the masked students. “You don’t know us.”

“Perhaps we do.”

“We know Bock, and Grimes, and Gussie,” put in Pepper.

“None of them here,” said one of the Pornell boys. “You are on to the wrong crowd entirely.”

“Maybe this is a Baxter trick!” whispered Andy to his chums.

“No, it’s a Roy Bock trick, I am sure of it,” returned Jack. “He is mad because we cut him out with the Ford girls.”

Our friends were led to a small grove not far from the roadside. Here a camp-fire was burning, and they were forced to kneel while the enemy stood around with their sticks upraised.

“We want you to make a solemn promise,” said one of the masked students.

“What promise?” demanded Jack.

“You have no right to visit Point View Lodge.”

“Ho! I thought so!”

“All of you must promise not to go there again.”

“I’ll not promise,” cried Jack.

“Nor I,” added Pepper.

“Count me out too,” came from Andy. “Why should we stay away?”

“You won’t promise?” asked several.

“No!” came in unison from our three friends.

“Then you’d rather suffer, eh?”

“We don’t intend to suffer!”

“Quit talking and take them to the lake, fellows!” growled one of the masked students. “They’ll sing another tune after they have been ducked three or four times.”

“So you are going to duck us?” said Jack.

“Such is our intention.”

“It’s a mean trick.”

“You can save yourself by promising to steer clear of Point View Lodge in the future.”

“Supposing we are invited there?”

“You can plead a previous engagement.”

“I’ll not do it,” said Andy.

“Nor I,” came from Jack and Pepper.

“To the lake with them!”

In spite of their resistance, our three friends were hurried through the woods, to a point where there was a small cove of the lake. Here a bent tree overhung the water and here were several ropes.

“We’ll tie them by the hands and feet and then duck them good,” said Roy Bock.

“We must escape!” whispered Jack to his friends. “When I give the word cut for it, and cut lively.”

“All right,” they answered.

“I’d rather be ducked than make any promises,” said Jack, loudly. “But I want to tell you fellows something. We have friends, and some day we’ll get square. The people – Gracious sakes alive! What is that, fellows? Look, it’s coming this way! It must be a mad bull!”