“Are they going to rob us?”

Such were a few of the questions which Jack, Andy, and Pepper asked when they found themselves confronted by the eight masked figures on the lonely forest road. Each of the masked persons was armed with a stout stick.

“Stop, do you hear?” came from one of the crowd, and stepping forward, he caught the horse by the head.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Jack.

“It means that you must consider yourself prisoners,” was the cold reply.

“Prisoners!”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?” queried Pepper.

“That remains for you to find out. Step down out of that carriage and be quick about it.”

“Perhaps we won’t step out,” said Andy.

“If you don’t, you’ll get hurt.”

“I know them!” shouted Jack. “They must be Pornell students. Roy Bock, I know your voice.”

“I am not Roy Bock,” was the answer, in a disguised voice.

“You are. What are you going to do with us?”

“We are going to give you a lesson,” growled Roy Bock, for it was really he who had spoken. “Come down out of that buggy!”

As Bock spoke one of the boys leaped forward and secured the whip and two others pulled away the reins. There was no help for it, and Jack, Pepper, and Andy had to leap out. They were at once surrounded.

“This is a pretty high-handed proceeding,” said Jack, in a steady voice. “Don’t you know we can put you in the hands of the law for it?”

“Bah!” growled one of the masked students. “You don’t know us.”

“Perhaps we do.”

“We know Bock, and Grimes, and Gussie,” put in Pepper.

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