re
not unlike that of a human being. At least, it looked so after
the bed clothes had been drawn up in place.

Then, glancing at the time, Dave Darrin waited---breathless.

Farley hastened into the room without losing time by knocking.
Under one arm he bore, half hidden, some roundish object, wrapped
in a towel.

Without a word, but with a heart full of gratitude, Dave Darrin
snatched out from its wrapping the effigy of a male human head.
It was done in wax, with human hair on the head.

Dave Darrin neatly fitted this at the top of the outlines of a figure
under the bed clothing.

Under the full light the doughface looked ghostly. In a dimmer
light it would do very well.

"Thank you a thousand times, fellows," trembled Dave Darrin. "Now
hustle to your own quarters before the first stroke of taps sounds."

The two useful visitors were gone like a flash. Ere they had
quite closed the door, Dave Darrin was removing his own uniform
and hanging up trousers and blouse. Next off came the underclothing
and on went pajamas.

Just then taps sounded. Out went the electric light, turned off
at the master switch.

Dave Darrin dived under the bed clothes on his own cot and tried to
still the beating of his own heart.

Two minutes later a brisk step sounded on the corridor of the "deck."

Door after door was opened and closed. Then the door to Dave's
room swung open, and a discipline officer and a midshipman looked
into the room.

"All in?" the midshipman called.

A light snore from Dave Darrin's throat answered. In his left
hand the discipline officer carried an electric pocket light.
A pressure of a button would supply a beam of electric light
that would explore the bed of either midshipman supposed to be
in this room.

But the officer saw Midshipman Darrin plainly enough, thanks to
beams of light from the corridor. Over in the opposite alcove
the discipline officer made out, more vaguely, the lay figure
and the doughface intended to represent Midshipman Dan Dalzell.

"Both in. Darrin and Dalzell never give us any trouble, at any
rate," thought the discipline officer to himself, then closed the
door, and his footsteps sounded further down the corridor.

"Oh, Danny boy, I wish I had you here right at this minute!" muttered
Dave Darrin vengefully. "Maybe I wouldn't whang your head off
for the fright that you've given me! I'll wager half of my hairs
have turned gray in the last minute!"

However, Mi