The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch: or, The Cowboys' Double Round-Up

“I don’t see how he can crowd seven of us into that small room,” answered Randy. “Why, it’s only got one cot in it!”

Professor Duke led the way through the corridor and up the broad stairs. In the meanwhile Professor Grawson had ordered the other cadets to their rooms, so there was no one at hand to witness what was taking place.

Arriving on the second floor, Snopper Duke led the way into another corridor and then up a somewhat narrow stairway leading to the third floor.

“Hello! I wonder where he’s going to take us now?” questioned Fred in wonder.

“This is certainly a new wrinkle,” declared Gif.

The third floor was but dimly lit until the professor turned on more light. Then he turned into a little side corridor at the end of which was located a long, narrow room which, during the previous year, had been used by some of the hired help but which was now unoccupied.

“You will remain in this room until I have a chance to communicate with Colonel Colby,” said Professor Duke, as he marched the cadets in. “And remember! I want no cutting up here. I want you to remain perfectly quiet.”

“How long shall we have to stay here?” questioned Jack.

“That will depend on what Colonel Colby has to say about it,” was the sharp answer.

“Do you expect us to stay here all night?” demanded Randy.

“You will have to stay here unless Colonel Colby gets back from the city, and I think that hardly likely to-night,” answered the teacher. “Now remember! No noise and no horseplay or I’ll do something that you won’t forget in a hurry,” and with this admonition he walked out of the room, closing and locking the door after him.

“Listen!” cried Fred, as all of the others started to talk at once. And going to the door, he listened intently, and so did the others, and they heard Snopper Duke pass through the little corridor and down the stairs.

“He’s gone, all right enough,” remarked Phil Franklin.

“Well, what do you know about this, anyhow!” cried Gif.

“I think he’s treating us like a lot of children,” declared Andy angrily.

“I don’t believe he has any right to keep us out of our regular rooms,” came from his brother.

“Well, anyway, he took the right,” answered Jack grimly. “And what is more, he seems to have the best of us.”

“He won’t have if we break down that door.”

“I don’t think you’ll have an easy job of it breaking down that door,” put in Spouter. “I happened to notice that there was not only a regular lock on it, but also a top bolt. You’d have to smash the whole door to get out. But it certainly is a despicable piece of business,” Spouter continued. “And at the first opportunity we have we’ll have to lay the whole case before Colonel Colby. I’m sure when he has verified our report, and gone into the various merits of the case, he will make a finding that will be in accordance with – ”

“Gee! Spouter can spout even if he is a prisoner,” burst out Randy. “Better get up on a chair, Spouter, and make a regular speech about it,” he continued, grinning.

“This is a new experience for me,” remarked Phil, with a smile. “I never thought I was going to be put in jail.”

“You can hardly call it being put in jail, Phil,” answered Jack. “In a military academy it is quite common for a cadet, when he has broken the rules and regulations, to be placed in the guardhouse, just the same as he is placed in the guardhouse in the regular army.”

“I thought maybe they’d make us do what they call police duty,” said the boy from Texas. “One fellow told me that while he was in the training camp he overstepped the regulations and they made him peel potatoes until he was sick and tired of seeing them.”

“Well, they do that too,” put in Fred. “You might have to do something like that if we were at the annual encampment. But while the school session is on all they do is to lock you up.”

The boys found that the long narrow room contained two double beds and two cots, as well as a couple of bureaus, several stools, and a table. At one end was a small bathroom and a clothing closet. There were three small windows in a row, all looking out on the snow-covered fields behind the school.

“Well, we’ve got a place to sleep, anyhow,” announced Jack. “Although three of us will have to sleep in one of the beds.”

“Not much in the way of covering,” remarked Gif, who had been making an investigation. “Just one thin blanket on each bed. And that radiator is not letting out heat enough to warm a cat,” he added, as he placed his hand on the one small radiator of which the long bedroom boasted.

“Never mind, we can keep on our uniforms if we want to,” declared Randy. “And who knows but what Colonel Colby may come back at any minute, and then I’m almost certain that he’ll let us go back to our own rooms.”

“He will unless old Duke cooks up some dreadful story against us,” came from his brother. “You can bet he’ll make out as black a case against us as he can.”

“Yes. But I think Professor Grawson will have something to say too,” said Jack. “And he has always been a very fair-minded man.”

“I don’t see why Colonel Colby took on such a man as Snopper Duke,” declared Spouter. “He’s every bit as bad as Asa Lemm was.”

“But you’ve got to hand it to him for being a very well educated man,” said Jack. “And he certainly knows how to teach when he’s in the humor for it.”

“I don’t think a man who is as harsh-minded as he is ought to be a teacher,” was Gif’s comment. “He can’t get a cadet to do his best if he’s forever nagging at him. Now, if I was a teacher, I’d do my best to gain my pupils’ confidence.”

There was a pause, and presently Andy began to chuckle.

“Say, he certainly did look funny when that big snowball hit him in the stomach and nearly knocked him over,” he cried.

“How could you see that when you were on your back?” questioned Fred.

“Oh, I managed to flop over and look down the stairs just in time. He was some sight, believe me. It’s a wonder he didn’t go over backward to the floor below. I don’t know what saved him. He must have grabbed the banisters just in time.”

“You can’t really blame him for being mad. I think maybe I’d be mad myself,” said Gif. “However, let’s drop that. What are we going to do? Go to bed?”

“I don’t see that there is anything else to do,” answered Jack.

“I’ve got to do something to keep warm,” declared Andy, and suddenly turned a somersault over one of the beds. Then he began to box with his brother, and the two spun around from one end of the room to the other.

“Here! you stop that,” warned Fred. “You know what Duke said. You keep on and he’ll put us down in the cellar or some other worse place.”

After this the seven cadets became more quiet, and, sitting as close as possible to the little radiator which gave forth only a mite of warmth, they discussed the situation for half an hour longer.

“That’s another one against Codfish,” declared Randy. “I’m sure he’s guilty.”

“Well, he had some reason for saying what he did,” said Jack. “He had to clear his own skirts after they found those two big snowballs in his room.”

“Just the same, Jack, you know well enough hardly any other fellow in the school would have squealed,” cried Randy. “Codfish always was a sneak, and I guess he always will be, no matter what some of the other fellows do for him.”

“Say, look here! I thought you fellows told me that Captain Dale was in charge of this school whenever Colonel Colby was absent,” burst out Phil suddenly.

“That’s true,” answered Jack. “He was in charge all the time the colonel was in the regular army.”

“Then why didn’t Professor Duke put this up to the captain?”

“Because Captain Dale is away on a little vacation,” announced Gif. “He won’t be back until some time next week.”

“And where did Colonel Colby go?”