pack their trunks.

"I must say this is a fine ending for the term," was Tom's comment, as
he began to get his belongings out of the closet. "And after
everything looked so bright, too!"

"It's a jolly shame!" cried Sam. "If Lew Flapp did this, or Dan Baxter,
I'd like to--to wring his neck for it!"

"It will certainly put a cloud on our name," said Dick. "In spite of
what we can say, some folks will be mean enough to think we are
guilty."

"We must catch the thief and make him confess," went on Tom.

The three boys packed their trunks and other belongings and then went
below again and down to the gymnasium and then to the boathouse. But
they could not interest themselves in anything and their manner showed
it.

"What is the matter that you came back so soon?" questioned Mrs. Green,
the matron of the academy, who knew them well.

"Oh, we had business with Captain Putnam," answered Tom, and that was
all he' would say. He dearly loved to play jokes on the matron, but now
he felt too downcast to give such things a thought.

Late in the afternoon the distant rattle of drums was heard, and soon
the battalion, dusty and hot, came into view, making a splendid showing
as it swung up the broad roadway leading to the Hall.

"Here they come!" cried Sam. But he had not any heart to meet his
friends, and kept out of sight until the young cadets came to a halt
and were dismissed for the last time by Captain Putnam and Major Colby.

"Well, this is certainly strange," said Larry Colby, as he came up to
Dick. "What was the row in the barn about?"

"I'll have to tell you some other time, Larry," was Dick's answer.
"There has been trouble and Captain Putnam wants to get at the bottom
of it."

"Somebody said you had been locked up for robbing a jewelry shop."

"There has been a robbery and we were suspected. But we were not locked
up."

As soon as he was able to do so, Captain Putnam learned the names of
the twelve cadets who had been on picket duty between midnight and six
o'clock that morning. These cadets were marched to one of the
classrooms and interviewed one at a time in the captain's private
office.

From the first six cadets to go in but little was learned. One cadet,
when told that something of a very serious nature had occurred--something
which was not a mere school lark and could not be overlooked--confessed
that he had allowed two cadets to slip out of camp and come
back again with two capfuls of apples ta