Toward midnight, Dick, alone, drifted to Dave Darrin and Harry Hazelton.

“I haven’t a thing to do, now, for four dances, unless some senior drops dead,” Dick remarked.

“I’m in as bad a plight,” admitted Harry.

“And I,” nodded Dave.

It wasn’t many moments ere the other three partners happened along, all disengaged.

“We don’t want to be wall-flowers,” muttered Dick.  “It’s going to be more than half an hour from now before any of us are due to dance again.  See here, fellows, what do you say to our getting our hats and coats and getting out into the air for a while?  A ballroom, isn’t the worst place in the world, but I’m so much a fresh air fellow, that I’m half stifling here.”

“Good!  Come along to the coatroom, then,” nodded Greg Holmes.

“Going home?” asked Laura Bentley, in a tone of protest, as she whirled by on Thompson’s arm and saw Dick & Co. headed for the coatroom.

She was gone before Dick could answer by word of mouth.  But he saw her regarding him from the other end of the room, and smilingly shook his head.

“Feels good to be out, doesn’t it?” asked Dan Dalzell, as the freshman sextette struck the open air.

“Yes; but what has happened to the blooming town?” demanded Greg Holmes.

Even this Main Street of Gridley presented a curious look.  It was a freezingly cold December night and it looked to the freshman as though the senior ball must be the only live thing left in the little city.

All the stores were closed, and had been for some time.  All lights were out in the nearest residences.  At first the boys thought they beheld held a policeman standing in front of the First National Bank, half a block away, but a closer look revealed the fact that he was only some belated loiterer—–­the sole human being in sight save themselves.

“Come off this other way, and let’s go down the side street,” proposed Dick.

“Yes; if we’re to find signs of life anywhere, it will have to be on the smaller side streets,” observed Greg Holmes.

Music wafted to them from the hall.

“There’s life going on up there,” remarked Dave.  “We left it behind us.”

“It isn’t life,” laughed Dick, “when some other fellow is dancing with your girl.”

Along the side street the first corner was at the beginning of a broad back alley that ran parallel with Main Street.

Along this alleyway they turned.

“By looking up at the windows,” suggested Prescott, “we may get some glimpses of the dance that are not so apparent when you’re up in the hall.”

True, as they passed by the rear of the dance hall they caught some glimpses of moving couples going by the windows, but that was all.

“And I want to remark,” grunted Tom Reade, “that it’s cold outdoors tonight.”

“An outdoor fellow like you ought not to mind that,” chaffed Dick