d?"

"Something stuck me right through the back!"

"And I got stuck, too! Gee, this is the worst yet!"

Such were some of the exclamations from Werner and Glutts as they sat
up and then bounced off of their cots. Then, in a rage, the
ex-lieutenant and his crony began to accuse the others in the tent of
having played a trick on them.

"We didn't do anything of the sort," growled one of the cadets.

"You fellows make me tired," howled the other. "If you don't shut up
and settle down I'm going to ask to be put in another tent."

"I'm going to light up and see what that confounded thing in my cot
is," growled Bill Glutts.

Something had stuck him in several places on his back, and he felt
anything but comfortable. Werner was rubbing himself and saying things
under his breath that were far from complimentary. The lantern was
lit, and both made an inspection of their cots. Each found a bundle
tied up in a thin, dirty towel.

"Rocks and sticks!" cried Gabe Werner, in deep disgust. "Hang the
luck, anyway!" He took up the bundle and gazed at it closer. "Well,
what do you know about this?"

"What is it?" questioned his crony.

"Here is a card! What do you know about this?" and he looked at a bit
of pasteboard on which had been scrawled:

"_Returned with the compliments of the Rovers._"

"You might know they'd try to get back at us," remarked Glutts.

"I'll fix 'em--you see if I don't!" and, in a rage, Gabe took up the
bundle which had been placed on his cot and threw it with all his
force to the back of the tent It struck a pole, and from inside came a
crash.

"Hello, you've broken something!" cried Glutts. "Maybe it's a bottle.
I wouldn't put it past 'em to put one in there, thinking you might get
cut with it."

To this Werner did not reply. A sudden thought had come to his mind,
and hastily he picked up the bundle, now somewhat torn, and opened it.
In the midst of the sticks and stones lay his flashlight, bent and
with the glass broken.

"Huh! that's a fine way to treat your own property," remarked Glutts,
with malicious humor. "Why didn't you examine the bundle before you
threw it away?"

"Aw, you shut up! You make me tired! Go on and look in your own
bundle."

The wholesale butcher's son did so, and there found another card from
the Rovers. This was pinned fast to the silk handkerchief, which was
neatly folded.

"Well, anyhow the handkerchief is all right," said Glutts consolingly,
as he passed it o