face was turned toward the window, and the moonlight revealed it
plainly. Beyond all question, it was the face of Barney Mulloy!

Bart went through the open window at a bound.

"Barney!" he called. "Barney Mulloy!"

The mysterious figure drew quickly back into the shrubbery and
disappeared. Merriwell sprang through the open window after Hodge, and
together they raced to the point where the figure had been seen. When
they got there they could discover nothing.

"That was Barney Mulloy!" Merriwell asserted.

"Sure!"

"And he isn't dead!"

"Barney or his spirit!"

"It was Barney."

"Why didn't he stop when I called to him?"

"I don't know. There is a mystery here."

"Biggest one I ever struck, Merry! It knocks me silly."

CHAPTER XXVII.

MERRIWELL'S FRIENDS.

The time was well on toward morning before Merriwell and Hodge turned in
to try to get some sleep. No more mysterious sounds or ghostly
appearances had been heard or seen. The sun was scarcely up when they
were aroused by a trampling of feet and the sounds of well-known voices
in the corridor. A rap fell on Merry's door.

"Arise, ye sleepers, and wake--I mean, awake, ye sleepers, and rise!"
shouted Harry Rattleton.

"Come out here and let me pull you out of bed!" grunted Bruce Browning.

"He is sleeping like the sleeper in the sleeper which runs over the
sleeper and does not awaken the sleeper in the sleeper which----"

"You give us that sleepy feeling yourself, Danny!" Bink Stubbs grumbled.

Merry tumbled out of bed, unlocked the door, and thrust his head into
the corridor. Before him were Bruce and Diamond, Rattleton and Dismal
Jones, Bink and Danny, and through the half-open door leading into the
office he also caught a glimpse of Elsie Bellwood and Bernard Burrage.

"Glad to see you!" he cried. "Where did you tumble from?"

Bart had his door open now, and began to ask questions.

"I'll be out in a minute," Frank promised, and began to dress with the
speed of a lightning-change artist. A little later Merriwell's entire
party gathered in the hotel office, for Inza had been awakened and
joined them.

Mutual explanations flew thick and fast. Merriwell's friends, after
being taken to New York, had shortly fallen in with a party of Yale
students, mostly seniors, who had come down from New Haven on the
steamer _Richard Peck_, and were on their way to view the new government
fortifications at Sandy Hook, by special permission of Gene