rporal Overton?" demanded the
sergeant.

"I don't know, Sergeant."

"But it was in your bed. You shook it out when you went to get up just
now."

"That's the gun," insisted Private William Green. "I saw it poked into
my face by some one prowling before my cot."

"Were you so scared that you didn't dare jump up or say anything?"
demanded Hupner, turning upon Private Green, who had now reached the
vicinity of Hal's cot.

"Scared, nothing!" grunted Private William. "I thought I must be
dreaming, for there was no danger in this room. Then I heard something
go smash down the room, like a stool being tipped over, and then I came
altogether out of my doze, and time I did, too! For I put my hand under
the mattress and my pouch and money were gone. Whoever poked that gun
toward my head got my money!"

By this time more than half the men in the room were sitting up on the
edges of their cots. A few more lay still, though wide awake, while a
few of the hardest sleepers were still in the Land of Nod.

"Green, are you sure your money's gone?" insisted Hupner sternly. It was
no light thing to the reliable old sergeant to find that he had a thief
in his squad room.

"Come and look for yourself, Sergeant."

"Corporals Overton and Terry, dress yourselves," ordered the sergeant,
as he started after Private William Green. "The rest of you men needn't
dress unless I direct it."

"Now, look here, Sergeant," insisted Green, after pulling the mattress
bodily from his cot. "Do you see anything that looks like my buckskin
pouch?"

There was no pouch to be found on or near Soldier William's cot.

"How much money did you have in the pouch?" demanded Hupner almost
angrily.

"Seven hundred and ten dollars," declared Green promptly.

"Whew!"

To most of the soldiers present that much money represented a fortune.

Yet no one in the room thought of doubting William's assertion. As
readers of the preceding volume know, Green had had considerable money
when he joined the regiment something more than a year earlier. And
William was known to be one who was constantly adding to his money by
saving his pay.

Moreover, Private Green had made not a little by lending money to
comrades in the battalion. He loaned on the time-honored system of
lending among enlisted men in the Army--the system of "five now but six
on pay day."

There are soldiers in every company--in every squad room--who always
spend their pay within a few days after r