by.

"Hello, who are those chaps?" cried Roger.

"One of them looked like Nat Poole to me," answered Dave.

"Wonder what they are doing here?"

"Came to see what was going on, I suppose."

"I don't like fellows like Nat Poole to be hanging around," remarked
Buster Beggs.

The fire had been burning low, but now it was stirred up and more dry
branches were piled on top, creating a roaring blaze. By the flickering
glare the masked figures looked decidedly fantastic.

Up to that moment the club members had been undecided what to do with
Gus Plum. Some were in favor of taking off his shoes and socks and
letting him down into the river through a hole in the ice, wetting him
up to his knees. Others wanted him to crawl on his hands and knees to
another spot on the river, quarter of a mile away. Still others wanted
to make a snow house and shut him inside for awhile, letting him breathe
through a piece of gaspipe which had been brought along. Others wanted
him to make a ten minutes' speech on "What Mackerels Have Done for
Astronomy," or some subject equally "deep."

"Let us have the speech, at least first," suggested Dave.

"All right, give us the subject," answered Phil, after a consultation
with the other officers.

"All right, I will," answered Dave, after a moment's thought. "Better
take the bag off his head first."

This was quickly removed, and Gus Plum was made to stand up on a rock
close to the fire.

"Wretch, listen!" came from one of the masked figures. "It is decreed
that thou must speak for ten minutes by the second-splitting watch on a
subject that shall be given to thee. Shouldst thou fail, it will be a
whacking with staves for thine. Dost thou agree?"

"Speak on what?"

"Here is the subject," said Dave, in a disguised voice that was thin and
piping: "If a Pail Lets Out Water When it Leaks, Why Doesn't a Boat Do
the Same Thing?" And a snicker went round at this question.

"Thou hast heard the subject. Art prepared to discourse?" asked one of
the Gee Eyes.

"Sure thing," answered Gus Plum, after a moment of thought. He struck an
attitude. "My subject is a most profound one, first broached by Cicero
to Henry Clay, during the first trip of the beloved pair to Coney
Island."

"Hurrah! Hooroo!" came from one of the club members.

"Cicero had been speaking to just such a crowd of convicts as I am now
addressing--thieves, murderers, and those who had failed to shovel the
snow from their sidewalks