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He came out from the alleyway onto the pavement, into the lurid lights of the Bowery, flopping along knee to toe on one leg, dragging the other leg behind him and the leg he dragged was limp and wobbled from the knee.
As it was, he was slightly stunned for the moment. By the time he could leap up and look about him, rather dizzily, his late assailant had made a clean escape. "No time to waste on a fellow who's got away," quoth Dick. He staggered slightly, at first, as he hurried from the yard back into the alleyway. "Now, you quiet down!" commanded Dave Darrin hoarsely. "No more from you, Mr. Thug!"
Barely had I drowsed off, however, when there intruded the chattering of several men in the alleyway and yard directly outside my window. "They'll soon be gone," I told myself, turning over. But I was over-optimistic. The voices increased, those of women chiming in. Louder and louder grew the uproar.
"Hustle, then!" urged Dan. Once out of the alleyway and into the side street the freshmen halted for an instant. "Fellows," spoke Dick Prescott, "you all know what that means? One lookout in front of the bank, and another at the rear. An auto at the rear, too. Greg, you hustle to the police station as fast as you can make your feet fly. No use trying to find a place open where you can telephone.
"I couldn't hear the talk, only part of a sentence whispered by that man-woman when the steward came into the cabin during the mid-watch last night with a can of salmon and some ship's bread. They stood near the door of the alleyway, talking, and I suddenly came bulging into them with rubber boots on.
He wanted to run across Len Spencer, and chose Main Street as the most likely thoroughfare for the purpose. He met the reporter at the head of a little alleyway. "Well, Dick, how did you like it?" was the reporter's greeting. "Say, it was great!" Dick bubbled over. "What do they think down at H.S.?" "Think?" repeated young Prescott. "Why, everybody is in ecstasies.
Then all walked down the alleyway and toward the tenement, little dreaming of the surprise in store for them. The hallway of the tenement was pitch-dark, the door standing open for a foot or more. From a rear room came a thin stream of light under a door and a low murmur of voices. "I guess he went to the rear," whispered Dick. "You wait around the comer till I see."
It was empty then, and its manhole was the foremost one in the alleyway. The boatswain could get in, therefore, without coming out on deck at all; but to his great surprise he found he could induce no one to help him in taking off the manhole cover. He groped for it all the same, but one of the crew lying in his way refused to budge.
While he spoke, the watchman on deck hailed some one, and a moment later a steady tramp sounded along the main deck, and a man came through the port door and into the alleyway. He hesitated for an instant, while a young man with rosy cheeks and light curly hair followed through the door and halted alongside the first comer.
"Let's see if we can't creep up a little nearer," whispered Dick Prescott, softly. "They may see us coming," warned Dave. "If they do, we'll just make a jump in and nab them anyway," Dick rejoined. "Remember the main game -capture!" Cautiously, a foot at a time, and in Indian file, the three freshmen stole down the dark alleyway.
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