enters
the tower room in search of him, Stanley is there and calmly says, "I
was visiting in barracks," in answer to his question; and finally, when
morning comes, Mr. Billy McKay nearly sleeps through reveille as a
consequence of his night-prowling; but his absence, despite the
simultaneous inspection of every company in barracks, has not been
detected. With one exception every bed has had its apparently soundly
sleeping occupant. The young scamps who caused all the trouble have
escaped scot-free, and the corps can hardly believe their own ears, and
Billy McKay is stunned and perplexed when it is noised abroad that the
only man "hived absent" was the captain of Company "B."

It so happens that both times he goes to find Stanley that day he misses
him. "The commandant sent for him an hour ago," says Mr. McFarland, his
room-mate, "and I'm blessed if I know what keeps him. Something about
last night's doings, I'm afraid."

This, in itself, is enough to make him worry, but the next thing he
hears is worse. Just at evening call to quarters, Jim Burton comes to
his room.

"Have you heard anything about this report of Stanley's last night?" he
asks, and McKay, ordinarily so frank, is guarded now in his reply. For
half an hour he has been pacing his room alone. McFarland's revelations
have set him to thinking. It is evident that the colonel's suspicions
are aroused. It is probable that it is known that some cadet was
"running it" the night before. From the simple fact that he is not
already in arrest he knows that Mr. Lee did not recognize him, yet the
secret has leaked out in some way, and an effort is being made to
discover the culprit. Already he has begun to wonder if the game was
really worth the candle. He saw her, 'tis true, and had half an hour's
whispered chat with her, interrupted not infrequently by giggling and
impetuous rushes from the other girls. They had sworn melodramatically
never to reveal that it was he who came, but Billy begins to have his
doubts. "It ends my career if I'm found out," he reflects, "whereas they
can't do much to Stan for visiting." And thus communing with himself, he
has decided to guard his secret against all comers,--at least for the
present. And so he is non-committal in his reply to Burton.

"What about it?" he asks.

"Why, it's simply this, Billy: Little Magee, the fifer, is on orderly
duty to-day, and he heard much of the talk, and I got it out of him.
Somebody was running it l