"I just made slip nooses, and placed them where they'd have to step into them before they could lay hands on the clothes," explained Jack. "Budge gave me the signal when they were inside the ropes." "And then we just pulled," put in Nat. "Wow! It was a corker, Jack! How did you think of it?" "It just happened to come to me. Say didn't they come down off that bank sailing, though?" "I pulled as if I was landing a ten pound pickerel," said Fred. "I wonder who I had." "Didn't stop to notice," Jack said, as he slipped on his coat. "They all came together. What a splash they made!" By this time the three conspirators had crawled up the bank. They were so soaking wet that it was hard to walk. Their shoes "squashed" out water at every step. They sat down on the grass, took them off, and removed some of their garments, which they proceeded to wring out. "Better hurry up," advised Jack, as he finished dressing. "Lecture begins in about two hours, and you're quite a way from home." "I'll--" began Ed Simpson, when Adrian stopped him with a gesture. "Sorry we have to leave you," Sam went on. "If you'd sent your cards we would have had the water warmed for you. Hope you didn't find it too chilly." The three cronies did not reply, but went on trying to get as much water as possible from their garments. Leaving them sitting on the grass, as the afternoon waned into evening, the swimmers hurried back to the academy. When the roll was called at the evening lecture, which was at an early hour, Jack and his friends replied "here!" For a week or more after the episode at the lake, matters at the academy went on in a rather more even tenor than was usual. One night Sam, who finished his studying early went to Jack's room. "Boning away?" he asked. "Just finishing my Caesar," was the reply. "Why, anything on?" "Nothing special," replied Sam. "Do you feel anything queer in your bones?" "Not so much as a touch of fever and ague," replied Jack with a laugh. "Do you need quinine?" "Quit your fooling. I mean don't you feel as if you wanted to do something?" "Oh I'm always that way, more or less," Jack admitted. "I'm not taking anything for it, though." "I'd like to take a stroll," said Sam. "I think that would quiet me down. I feel just as if something was going to happen." "Probably something will, if we go out at this hour," Jack said. "It's against the rules." "I know it is, but it wouldn't be the first time you or I did it. Come on, let's go out. Down the trellis, the way you did when you discovered Grimm smoking." "I don't know," began Jack. "Of course you don't," interrupted Sam. "I'll attend to all that. Come on." Needing no more urging, Jack laid aside his book, turned his light low, and soon he and Sam were cautiously making their way from Jack's window, along a trellis and drain pipe to the ground. "There!" exclaimed Sam, as he dropped lightly to the earth. "I feel better already. Some of the restlessness has gone."