e, crossing the room
almost in a single bound.

Swift as a flash Dick laid hands on the intruder, dragged him back
from the cot, wheeled him around and let drive a blow from the
shoulder that caught the prowler on the nose and sent him to the
floor.

"Let up, you b.j. plebe!" came a roar of smothered rage.

The body had fallen nearer the door, where the light from outside
was stronger.

Dick noted, with a thrill of dismay, that the other was attired not in
"cit." dress, but in the cadet gray.

"Hold on a minute," begged Prescott.

Striking a match he turned on the gas. As the light flamed up Dick
saw Cadet Corporal Spurlock standing before him, quivering with
rage.

"You b.j. plebe!" snarled Mr. Spurlock. "I'll take this out of you!"

"Certainly," replied Dick promptly. "But, first of all, I want to
assure you that I didn't see the uniform. I thought I had discovered
a cit. in here, and I knew no cit. could be here on any honest
business."

"Bosh!" growled Spurlock, who was holding a handkerchief to a
nose that was bleeding freely.

Cadet Prescott drew himself up, his eyes flashing.

"Pardon me, sir," returned Dick. "But you know, as well as I, sir,
that a lie is impossible to a cadet."

It was a hard report to get around that a cadet had told a lie. At
times cadets have been known to lie, but invariably, after
detection, they have been "cut" and forced out of the corps. So
lying is a rare occurrence, indeed, among the cadets.

"I'll make you settle for this, anyway," sputtered Cadet Corporal
Spurlock.

"Very good, sir," Dick answered resolutely.

"You'll settle at once, too, mister, or as soon as I've stopped
this flow."

"Very good, sir," Dick answered again. "But if I'm not too b.j., sir,
in talking at all, I'll call your attention to that clock. There is just
time for you to reach your quarters before taps sound."

Spurlock glanced hastily at the clock.

"You're right, mister," he admitted. "Then you may wait until you
hear from me, mister."

With that Spurlock walked quickly from the room.

Dick examined his cot and found that Spurlock had been engaged
in the humorous trick of placing some two score exploded caps
from target-rifle ammunition under his under sheet.

"He wanted me to jump into bed and go down plump on all those
caps, and then squirm there until after taps inspection," grinned
Prescott as he swiftly removed the stuff. "It would have been a
tough one, too--but now I guess