Teachers had now crowded to the window and were peering out.

Some of the men started to the door to come out.

Belton saw this movement and decided that the best way for him to do was to play chicken thief and run.

Grasping a hen with his other hand, he darted out of the chicken house and fled from the college ground, the chickens squalling all the while.

He leapt the college fence at a bound and wrung off the heads of the chickens to stop the noise.
The teachers decided that they had been visited by a Negro, hunting for chickens; laughed heartily at their fright and resumed deliberations.