For a half-hour he waited but the stillness of the night was unbroken.  He was becoming chilled and he dared not remain longer where he was.  At last he decided to return to the place where he had left his own classmates and report to them what he had seen.

Hastily withdrawing from his shelter he ran swiftly across the fields until he came to the corner, and then whistling softly was rejoiced when he perceived his friends rise from the ground in an angle of the crooked fence and advance to meet him.

“Is that you, Will?” said Foster in a low voice.  “We didn’t know what had become of you.  What’s up?  What’s wrong?”

Will hastily described what he had seen and then said, “I’m dead sure, fellows, that that soph has been left in the barn to watch those canes.”

“Why didn’t you run away with the horse and sleigh?” inquired Hawley.

“I did think of trying it.  But I made up my mind that even if I should succeed in doing it, it would give the whole thing away.  They’d know that we’d found out where they had hidden our canes and there wouldn’t be much use in our trying to get them again.  Now we know where they are and the sophs don’t even know that we know.”

“You mean you think they don’t know that we know,” suggested Foster.

“I know it!” asserted Will positively.  “Now what shall we do?”

“Put straight back to the barn, tie up the soph and take the canes away with us,” said Hawley promptly.

“I’ve thought of that,” replied Will.  “But do you think that’s the best plan?  If we take the canes away we may lose them, for St. Patrick’s Day isn’t till day after to-morrow, you know.  If this soph, I don’t know who he is, has been left as guard he’ll be relieved, and if they find he’s gone and the canes too, why it’ll be all the harder for us.”

“What do you suggest, Phelps?” inquired Hawley.

“How will this do?  Some one of us can creep back there into the barn and keep watch the same as the soph is doing.  He can be relieved in the morning and then some one else can take his place.  If anything happens in the barn he’ll be pretty likely to know it, and if anything doesn’t happen then we can get up a good-sized crowd and go down there to-morrow night and get the canes.  We can distribute them among our fellows and then the next morning every fellow in the class can march into chapel with his cane.”

“Good!  Good!  That’s the idea!” said Hawley warmly.  “Who’ll go down in the barn and be guard for the night?”

“Who’s got the most cuts to spare?” inquired Will.

“I have,” said Foster promptly.  “I have taken but four.”

“Then I should say you were the one to stand guard to-morrow,” said Will.  “I’ll go to-night myself,” he added.  “Come down just before it’s light in the morning, and come to the door in the rear of the barn.  Rap three times softly, and then if that doesn’t work, whistle, but not too loud.”