rolled up the sleeves of his pajama coat

"Now," he said, "let's take a look before we roll the bed away."

Clutching the dictionary in both hands, Frank slid to the floor where he
crouched, shivering from excitement. Bill, on his knees, folded a
handkerchief over the flashlight to dim it, then pressed the button.
Slowly he turned it under the bed. The dim light rested on a tumbled
shock of hair and a flushed face, pillowed uncomfortably on a cramped
and doubled arm.

Snores rattled furiously from the open mouth. Sleeping the sleep of the
weary, the thief lay completely at their mercy.

"Gosh!" said Bill as he looked.

"Gee-roosalem!" murmured Frank.

With a bang the big dictionary slipped from his hands and landed on the
floor.

The intruder with a violent start opened his eyes and looked at them.

CHAPTER IX

Setting the flash so it would not go out, Bill laid it down on the
floor, cried "Oh, you robber!" and beginning to laugh continued until he
had to lie on the floor and roll around. Frank, laughing, too, carefully
shoved back the bed. The intruder sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"I guess the joke is on me," he said.

It was Horace Jardin!

"This beats everything in my young life," said Bill as soon as he could
speak. "What are you doing here anyhow, scaring the life out of two poor
little boys on their very first night in boarding-school? Don't you know
you are making us break rules the first shot?"

Horace laughed sheepishly.

"I was going to give you a good old scare," he said, "but I was so tired
and it took you so long to get here that I went to sleep. But I bet you
are surprised to see me here."

"Here at this school, or under our beds?" quizzed Bill.

"Both," said Horace.

"How did it happen?" asked Frank.

"It was the airplane," explained Horace. "This is the only school in the
country where they let you fool with this air stuff, and so I told dad
that it was no use bribing me with an airplane to stay in school all
the year if I couldn't go where I could use it. I have learned to fly,
by the way. Dad paid a dollar a minute to have me taught. I tell you I
am a whiz! It cost him five hundred dollars for my tuition, and two
thousand more to mend a plane I broke, but he was so pleased at the way
I learned that he didn't mind the bills at all. So here I am, and when I
heard you were coming--well, I was certainly tickled! So I sneaked in
here as soon as the bell rang for lights out, an