"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 General Merritt, commander of the Department of the East.

This permission had been obtained by Lieutenant Andrew Bell, of the First United States Artillery, who had recently been detailed by the secretary of war as professor of military science in Yale College.
Merriwell's friends had been invited to join this company of students, that they might the more quickly reach their friends, and had been brought to Sandy Hook by the government steamer _General Meigs_.

From Sandy Hook the steamer's large steam-launch had hurried them on to Glen Springs.
"And now you are going right back with us to Sandy Hook!" Elsie enthusiastically exclaimed.
Suddenly a silence fell on the jolly party, occasioned by the shadow that came over the face of Frank Merriwell.
"I can't go until we have settled the mystery of Barney Mulloy," he declared; and then gave a hurried account of what he and Bart had seen and heard.
"I hoped you wouldn't say nothin' about that!" grumbled the landlord, who had been until then an interested listener.
Up to that moment he had seemed pleased, though nervous, for it gratified him to have guests who were of sufficient importance to be brought to Glen Springs by the launch of a government steamer.
"This must be all nonsense, you know!" he declared.