urged Mr. Butler angrily.
"Mister, you're caught with the freight in your possession. What
are you holding that cord for, sir?"

"I--I don't know, sir," quavered Greg, who was just beginning to
feel awake after his rudely disturbed slumber.

"You--don't--know!" retorted Mr. Butler, in high dudgeon.

"What--what has happened, sir?" inquired Greg.

To Mr. Butler this seemed very much like adding insult to injury.

"You thought it was funny, did you, mister, to rig a cord across the
company street?" raged the yearling, though he kept his voice
down to a gentlemanly pitch. "You play tricks like that on upper
class men. Of all the b.j. imps that ever put on gray! Mister, all I'm
sorry for is that the officer of the day, or the O.C. didn't trip over
your cord! Or the K.C. himself!"

"Now, I want to understand this, sir," contended Cadet Holmes,
rising from his mattress and stepping forward. "I've just been
aroused out of a sound sleep, and I find myself with a cord tied to
one of my fingers."

"Oh, you do, mister?" jeered Mr. Butler harshly.

"And you, sir, come into this tent and accuse me of something.
What I am anxious to know, sir, is what it is that I am accused of."

"See here, mister, I've no more time to waste on a b.j. beast.
You've spoiled my best white ducks, and, incidentally, my temper.
You compound this by adding more b.j.-ety. If you don't know
what I'm going to do about it, wait until you hear from me, mister!"

Turning, very erect and stiff, in his outraged dignity, Mr. Butler
left the tent.

"Now, what on earth have I done, anyway?" wondered Greg.

In his perplexity he stepped to the doorway of his tent. He saw the
business-like arrangement of the cord, and all was clear to him,
now.

"Some hazer has rigged that cord and tied one end to my finger,"
gasped Plebe Holmes.

Then a grin overspread his face.

"Well, it was mighty clever, anyway."

An instant more, and the grin gave place to a serious look.

"Clever or not, it certainly spells trouble for me."

When the cadets returned from breakfast in the morning, and while
Greg was finishing the donning of field uniform for a forenoon of
drill, a shadow fell across the doorway of the tent.

Prescott and Anstey were still members of the guard, and therefore
absent.

"Mr. Holmes, I wish to speak with you," announced Mr. Haldane,
of the yearling class.

"Will you come in, sir?"

Haldane stepped just inside the tent, standing severely