tinuing, just as Dick piloted
Durville within hearing.

"And you think you did it slickly, I suppose?" jeered the stranger.

Though Jordan did not seem to suspect it, the stranger was seeking
this information as another blackmailing club to hold over Jordan's
head.

"Slick?" queried Jordan, with a sneer. "Well, it wasn't altogether
that. There was a good bit of luck in the whole job, too, but
Prescott is in Coventry, and there he'll stick, too. He'll be
away from here inside of two or three days more."

"How did you manage to do it?" asked the stranger, concealing
his anxiety to have Jordan tell the story.

CHAPTER XIV

THE STORY CARRIED ON THE WIND

"Oh, I fixed it all right," insisted Jordan confidently.

He was speaking in a rather low tone, but the breeze carried every
word to the ears of the listeners.

"You're talking just to hear yourself talking," sneered the stranger
coarsely.

"No; I'm not, Henckley," retorted the cadet.

"What was the trick, then?"

"Don't you wish you knew?" laughed Jordan.

"I don't care much," replied the stranger named Henckley. "But
I can't just picture you as doing anything extremely clever.
Even if it was luck, as you say, I can't figure how you were smart
enough to know how to profit by it. That's why I'm just a bit
curious, but no more."

"Why, you see, it happened this way," went on Jordan. "I saw
Prescott, that night back into camp, going into the tent of the
O.C. I thought that perhaps Prescott was going there in order
to say more about the matter that he had reported me for that
forenoon. So I moved close and listened. It seemed that some
of the plebes had been running the guard nights. Lieutenant Denton
asked the fellow Prescott, who is a cadet captain, to keep a watch
and stop plebes before they had a chance to get on the other side
of the guard line.

"Well, I knew the point at which plebes were in the habit of getting
past the guard line, and so did Prescott, I guess. So, a little
after taps, I slipped outside the guard near where I judged Prescott
would be watching. Then, after I had heard him speak with the
cadet sentry I presently stooped low in the bushes and lit a cigar.
Then I stood up straight and the glowing end of the cigar showed
from where Prescott stood. He did just what a fellow like him
feels bound to do, and what I knew he'd do. He hailed me. I
acted as though I wanted to get away, then allowed myself to be
overhaul