r. McKay's voice was as well known to them as
to the corps, there was no alternative. The colonel himself "confounded"
the young scamp for his recklessness, and directed a report to be
entered against him.

And now, as Mr. Stanley is betaking himself to his post at the
guard-house, his heart is heavy within him because of this new load on
his comrade's shoulders.

"How on earth could you have been so careless, Billy?" he had asked him
as McKay, fuming and indignant, was throwing off his accoutrements in
his room on the second floor.

"How'd I know anybody was over there?" was the boyish reply. "It's just
a skin on suspicion anyhow. Lee couldn't have seen me, nor could anybody
else. I stood way back by the clothes-press."

"There's no suspicion about it, Billy. There isn't a man that walks the
area that doesn't know your voice as well as he does Jim Pennock's.
Confound it! You'll get over the limit yet, man, and break your--your
mother's heart."

"Oh, come now, Stan! You've been nagging me ever since last camp. Why'n
thunder can't you see I'm doing my best? Other men don't row me as you
do, or stand up for the 'tacks.' I tell you that fellow Lee never loses
a chance of skinning me: he _takes_ chances, by gad, and I'll make his
eyes pop out of his head when he reads what I've got to say about it."

"You're too hot for reason now, McKay," said Stanley, sadly. "Step out
or you'll get a late for supper. I'll see you after awhile. I gave that
note to the orderly, by the way, and he said he'd take it down to the
dock himself."

"Mother and Nan will probably come to the guard-house right after
supper. Look out for them for me, will you, Stan, until old Snipes gets
there and sends for me?"

And as Mr. Stanley shut the door instantly and went clattering down the
iron stairs, Mr. McKay caught no sign on his face of the sudden flutter
beneath that snugly-buttoned coat.

It was noticed by more than one of the little coterie at his own table
that the officer of the day hurried through his supper and left the
mess-hall long before the command for the first company to rise. It was
a matter well known to every member of the graduating class that, almost
from the day of her arrival during the encampment of the previous
summer, Phil Stanley had been a devoted admirer of Miss Nannie McKay. It
was not at all to be wondered at.

Without being what is called an ideal beauty, there was a fascination
about this winsome little maid