Cautiously, treading on the grass and keeping as close as he might to the front of the buildings, he made his way to Oxford. All was quiet as yet. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he found that he could see for some little distance. There was the flagpole, a grayish streak in the gloom, and he thought he could make out the edge of The Prospect beyond. Some stars showed, but for the most part they were obscured by clouds. It was an ideal night for desperate deeds, Kendall reflected, and he shivered pleasurably as he ensconced himself in the doorway of Oxford. He wondered what time it was, but had no way of determining. Suddenly a drumming sound reached him and he listened acutely. It grew and grew and at last resolved itself into the rush of a night freight bearing down from the east. Presently a ruddy glow smote the darkness away to the left as the fireman fed coal to the pounding engine. Then all was blackness again, and the roar of the train as it rushed through the cut a little distance away filled the night. After a moment Kendall could see the tail lights as the train swept across the bridge into Greenburg. Hoarse and low came the distant whistle of a steamer on the Sound. Then quiet settled down again. Although the day had been unseasonably warm, the night held a chill that was fast getting through Kendall’s scant attire. And the stones felt very cold under the worn soles of his rubber “sneakers.” He wished that the enemy would make its appearance and have done with it. And at almost the same minute, as though in answer to his wish, there reached him faintly the sound of a creaking carriage from beyond the slope. The sounds ceased. Kendall, straining sight and hearing, waited, his heart pounding against his ribs. Minute after minute passed. Time and again his imagination peopled The Prospect with skulking figures, and more than once he was certain that he heard voices. But when the enemy did appear it was from an unsuspected quarter. Kendall had been so sure that they would creep up over the edge of The Prospect that he never took his eyes from that direction until a sound at his left, the faintest sound imaginable, summoned his gaze. They had come by the drive, after all, banking, doubtless, on the darkness to remain undetected. When Kendall first saw them they were almost halfway across the turf between the drive and the flagpole, which, from where he hid in the entrance of Oxford, was a scant twelve yards distant.