For they had become alarmed at Quiz’ absence, and started out in search of him, as they had once before set forth on the trail of Tug and History.

[Illustration:  “Jumbo saw a pair of flashing eyes glaring at him over the coverlet.”]

By the time Quiz reached his room he was too tired to be very hungry, and he decided that his bed would be Paradise enough.  So, all cold and weary as he was, he hastily peeled off his clothes, and blew out the light.  He shivered at the very thought of the coldness of the sheets, but he fairly flung himself between them.

Just one-tenth of a second he spent in his downy couch, and then leaped out on the floor with a howl.  He remembered suddenly the look Jumbo had given him at dinner when he had said he could not get snow enough.

Jumbo and the other fiends from Lakerim had filled the lower half of his bed with it!

* * * * *

Late that night, when the eleven Lakerimmers came back, weary from their long search, and frightened at not finding Quiz, Jumbo went to his room with a sad heart.  When he lighted his lamp and looked longingly toward his downy bed, he saw a pair of flashing eyes glaring at him over the coverlet.  They were the eyes of Quiz; and within easy reach lay a baseball bat and several large lumps of coal.  But all Quiz said was: 

“Excuse me for getting into your bed, Jumbo.  You are perfectly welcome to mine.”

XVI

But, speaking of cold, you ought to hear about the great fire company that was organized at the Academy.

The town of Kingston was not large enough or rich enough to support a full-fledged fire department with paid firemen and trained horses.  It had nothing but an old-fashioned engine, a hose-cart, and a ladder-truck, all of which had to be drawn by two-footed steeds, the volunteer firemen of the village.

The Lakerimmers had not been in Kingston many weeks before they heard the fire-bell lift its voice.  It was not more than twenty minutes before the Kingston fire department appeared galloping along the rough road in front of the campus at a fearsome speed of about six miles an hour.

Several of the horses wore long white beards, and others of them were so fat that they added more weight than power to the team.

Such of the academicians as had no classes at that hour followed these champing chargers to the scene of the fire.

It turned out to be a woodshed, which was as black and useless as a burnt biscuit by the time the fire department arrived.

But the Volunteers had the pleasure of dropping a hose down the well of the owner of the late lamented woodshed, and pumping the well dry.  The Volunteers thus bravely extinguished three fence-posts that had caught fire from the woodshed, and then turned for home, proud in the consciousness of duty performed.  They felt sure that they had saved the village from a second Chicago fire.