"The cord," Greg confessed, with a sheepish grin.
"Better get rid of it right where you are. Even a fishline is rope enough to hang a cadet when he gets into trouble too close to the reveille gun."
Greg had barely tossed away the coil of cord when-----
Bang! bang! bang!
Bang! bang! BANG!
The fusillade ripped out within a hundred yards of where they now stood.
d.i.c.k and Greg halted in amazement. They did not start, or jump, for the soldier habit was too firmly fixed with them. But they were astounded.
As they stood there, staring, more explosions ripped out on the night air, over by Battle Monument.
Cadets Prescott and Holmes could see the flashes, also, close down near the ground, as though an infantry firing squad were lying prostrate and firing at will.
Bang! bang! bang! The fusillade continued.
Behind the two cadets sounded running footsteps.
"Hadn"t we better duck?" demanded Greg.
"No; it would look bad. We had no hand in this, and we can stick to our word."
Over at camp, orders were ringing out. Though the two cadets near Battle Monument heard indistinctly, they knew it was the call for the cadet guard.
Now the nearest runner pa.s.sed them. It was Captain Bates, on a dead run, and, as Bates was not much past thirty, and an athlete, he was getting over the ground fast.
As he pa.s.sed, Bates, without slackening speed, took d.i.c.k and Greg in with one swift glance.
Back in Gridley d.i.c.k and Greg certainly would have dashed onward to the scene of the excitement. As young soldiers, they knew better. Their presence over by Battle Monument had not been officially requested. Yet, as it was not time for taps, the cadets could and did stand where they were.
Two different armed forces were now moving swiftly forward to reinforce the O.C., as the officer in charge is termed.
Two policemen of the quartermaster"s department---enlisted men of the Army, armed on with revolvers in holsters---ran over from the neighborhood of the nearest officers" quarters.
Cadet Corporal Haynes and the relief of the guard, moving at double quick, pa.s.sed d.i.c.k and Greg on the path.
"Some fellows touched off firecrackers," whispered Greg to his chum.
"Number one cannon crackers," guessed Prescott.
They could see Captain Bates take a dark lantern from one of the quartermaster"s police detail, and scan the ground closely all around where the cannon crackers had been discharged.
"Nothing more doing," muttered yearling Prescott. "We may as well be going back to camp, Greg. But we"ll lose a heap of that six hours and a half of sleep tonight."
"Think so?" demanded Holmes moodily.
"Know it. The tac. saw us twice on this path, and he has us marked.
The O.C. and the K.C. (commandant of cadets) will hold their own kind of court of inquiry tonight, and you and I are going to be grilled brown."
"We didn"t set the cannon crackers off; we didn"t see anyone around the monument, and we don"t know anything about it."
"All true," nodded d.i.c.k. "But we"ll have to say it in all the different styles of good English that we can think of."
d.i.c.k and Greg reached the encampment, and pa.s.sed inside the limits, just before they heard the guard marching back.
Then all was ominously quiet over at the tent of the O.C., Captain Bates.
Tattoo had gone some time ago. Now the alarm clock told the bunkies that they had just three minutes in which to get undressed and be in bed before taps sounded on the drum.
"It"s a shame, too," muttered d.i.c.k in an undertone. "We won"t be any more than on the blanket before the summons from the O.C.
will arrive."
"Here it comes, now," whispered Greg, nudging his bunkie.
But it was Anstey, their tentmate, hastening to be undressed in time against taps.
"What was the row?" asked the Virginian.
"Cannon crackers over at Battle Monument," replied d.i.c.k. "We were over there at the time."
"You were?" asked Anstey quietly, but shooting at them a look of amused suspicion.
So many cadets were now seeking their tents that our three bunkies did not notice that one footstep ceased before their door, for a moment, then pa.s.sed on.
The man outside was Bert Dodge, also of the Dodge was a former Gridley High School boy and a bitter enemy of d.i.c.k"s. The origin of that enmity was thoroughly told in the _High School Boys Series_.
During the plebe year Dodge, who was a fellow of little honor or principle had done his best to involve Prescott in serious trouble with the Military Academy authorities, but had failed.
Dodge, however, had succeeded in escaping detection, and had succeeded in pa.s.sing on from the plebe to the yearling cla.s.s.
Anstey, however, who had been Dodge"s roommate in the plebe year, was firmly resolved that he would not be roommate to Dodge when they returned to cadet barracks the next year.
Dodge hated all three of the bunkies in this tent, but d.i.c.k Prescott he hated more than the other two combined.
"Yes; we were near the spot," d.i.c.k said, answering Anstey"s question.
"But we didn"t set off the crackers, or have anything to do with the matter. We don"t even know, or have a guess, as to who the offenders were."
Though Dodge knew, in his soul, that he could believe Prescott, it was with an evil smile that Bert now hastened on, gaining his own tent.
Taps sounded, and fifteen minutes more went by. It began to look as though the Battle Monument affair would be allowed to go by until morning. Greg was asleep, and d.i.c.k was just dozing off, when there came a sharp step in the company street. The step had an official sound to it. That step halted, suddenly, before the door of the tent of our three bunkies.
"By order of the commandant of cadets," sounded the voice of Cadet Corporal Haynes. "Mr. Prescott and Mr. Holmes will turn out with all due speed, and report at the office of the officer in charge."
"Yes, sir," acknowledged Prescott, and nudged drowsy, half-awake Greg.
"Yes, sir," replied Holmes.