“I wonder what he is doing in this neighborhood?” ventured Bert.
“It’s certainly a puzzle,” admitted Tom Fairfield. “He’s up to no good, I’ll wager.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jack. “Well, I’m glad he’s gone, anyhow. That sure was some upset!”
“Say, did you notice his ear?” asked George. “It wasn’t that way when he was teaching school here. Looks as if a knife had cut him.”
“Was his ear like that when he was shipwrecked with you, Tom?” asked Bert.
“No. That’s a new injury,” was the answer. “Rather a queer one, too. He might have been in a fight.”
The lads remained standing together, for a little while, gazing at the now fast-disappearing cutter and its surly occupant.
“Well, let’s get back to school,” proposed Jack. “It will soon be grub-time.”
“And Tom can tell us more about that hunting trip,” suggested Bert.
“All right,” agreed our hero, but as he walked along he was puzzling his brain, trying to think what Professor Skeel’s object was in coming back to Elmwood Hall.
Perhaps if Tom could have seen Mr. Skeel a little later, as the cutter drew up at a road-house some miles away – a road-house that did not have a very enviable reputation in the neighborhood – Tom would have wondered still more over his former teacher’s return.
For, as the cutter drew up in the drive, there peered from a window two men, one with a more evil-looking face than the other, which was his only claim to distinction.
“There he comes,” murmured the man with the less-evil countenance.
“Yes, but he’s late,” agreed the other. “Wonder what kept him?”
“He looks mad – too,” commented his companion.
A few moments later Professor Skeel entered the rear room of the road-house. The two men arose from the table at which they had been sitting.
“Well, you kept your word, I see,” muttered Skeel to the man with the evil face. “You’re here, Whalen. And you too, Murker.”
“Yes. We’re here, but you didn’t say what you wanted of us,” spoke the one addressed as Whalen.
“You’ll know soon enough,” was the rejoinder. “We sha’n’t want anything – at least not for a while,” Mr. Skeel went on to the landlord, who had followed him into the room. “You can leave us alone. We’ll ring when we want you. And close the door when you go out,” he added, significantly.
The landlord grunted.
“Well, now, what’s the game?” asked Whalen, when Mr. Skeel had seated himself at the table.
“Revenge! That’s the game!” was the fierce answer, and a fist was banged down on the table. “I want revenge, and I’m going to have it!”
“Who’s the party?” demanded Murker.
“Someone you don’t know, but whom you may soon. Tom Fairfield! I owe him a long score, but I’m going to begin to pay it now. I want you to help me, Whalen.”
“Oh, I’ll help you quick enough,” was the ready answer.
“He was instrumental in having you discharged from Elmwood Hall, wasn’t he?” went on the former instructor.
“That’s what he was.”
“Something about beating one of the smaller boys, was it not?” and Skeel smiled in a suggestive way, as though he rather relished, than otherwise, the plight of Whalen.
“Naw, I only gave the kid a few taps ’cause he threw a snowball at me,” the discharged employee went on, “but that whelp, Fairfield, saw me, and complained to Doc. Meredith. Then I was fired.”
“And you’d like a chance to get even, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s what I would!” was the harsh answer.
“Well, I want to square accounts with him also, and, at the same time, make a little money out of it. I thought you and Murker could help me, and that’s why I asked you to meet me here. I’m a bit late, and that’s some more of Fairfield’s doings. Now to business. This is the game!”
And the three plotters drew their chairs closer together and began to talk in low, mumbling voices.
CHAPTER IV
HOLIDAY FUN
“Jolly times to-night, fellows!” exclaimed Jack Fitch as he, with Tom and the other chums, walked along the snowy road on their way back to Elmwood Hall. “No boning to do, and we can slip away with some eats on the side and have a grub-fest.”
“That’s right,” chimed in Bert Wilson. “Maybe you’d better put off telling us about the hunting trip, Tom, until we all get together. Suppose we meet in my room – it’s bigger.”
“All right,” agreed Tom. “Anything suits me as long as you fellows don’t grab all the crackers and cheese before I get there.”
“We’ll save you a share,” promised Morse Denton.
“I’ve got part of a box of oranges my folks sent me,” volunteered George Abbot.
“Bring ’em along,” advised Jack. “They’ll come in handy to throw at the fellows if any of ’em try to break in on us.”
“What! Throw my oranges!” cried George. “Say, they’re the finest Indian Rivers, and – ”
“All right. If they’re rivers, we’ll let ’em swim instead of throwing ’em,” conceded Bert. “Anything to be agreeable.”
“Oh, say now!” protested George, who did not always know how, or when, to take a joke.
“It’s all right, don’t let ’em fuss you,” advised Tom in a low voice. “But, fellows, we’d better hustle if we’re going to have doings to-night.”
“That’s right!” chorused the others, and they set off at a rapid pace toward Elmwood Hall, which could be seen in the distance, the red setting sun of the December day lighting up its tower and belfry. The skates of the students jangled and clanked as they hurried on, making a musical sound in the frosty air, for it was getting colder with the approach of night.
“Seasonable weather,” murmured Jack. “It’ll be a lot colder than this up in the Adirondacks, when we start hunting deer and bear.”
“What’s all this?” asked Morse, with a sudden show of interest.
“Some of Tom’s schemes,” answered Jack. “We’re going on a hunting trip.”
Morse looked to Tom for confirmation.
“That’s the idea,” Tom said, briefly sketching his plan. “Bert, Jack and George are going with me. Like to have you come along.”
“I’d like to, first rate, old man,” was the answer, given with a shake of the head, “but the governor has planned a trip to Palm Beach for the whole family, over Christmas, and I have to go along to keep order.”
“I’m sorry,” voiced Tom, but his words were lost in a gale of laughter from his chums as they sensed the final words of Morse.
“You keep order! You’re a fine one for that!”
“The fellow who tied the cow to Merry’s back stoop!”
“Yes, and the lad who put the smoke bomb in the furnace room! A fine chap to keep things straight!”
“Oh, well, you don’t have to believe me!” said Morse, with an air of injured innocence that ill became him.
“They evidently don’t,”