vate Mock displayed
any uneasiness on coming face to face with his captain's chum.

"That will be a good way, perhaps, to test out the note," Prescott
decided.

Though the two men appeared to be talking earnestly, only a mumble
of voices reached Dick's ears when the men were no more than thirty
feet away. Then they stepped into the road, where they halted
hardly more than a dozen feet away from the screened captain.

"It's a pity you wouldn't have your nerve," said the stranger,
to Mock. "You tell me you hate your captain."

"Wouldn't you, if he had treated you like he treated me?" demanded
Mock heatedly.

"Surely I would," agreed the stranger.

"And there's Holmes's friend, that fellow Prescott, who, he, you
say, would spend all his time looking into anything that happened
to Holmes. You could settle with them both, and then there'd
be no one left to worry about."

"Say, just what are you thinking of doing to 'em?" demanded Mock,
in a tone of uneasy suspicion.

"There are two things that could be done to them," continued the
civilian. "One would be to put them out of the way altogether, and
the other would be to bring disgrace upon them so that they'd be
kicked out of the Army. That would break their hearts, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," muttered Mock, "but you're talking dreams, neighbor. I'm
no black-hander, to creep up behind them with a knife, or take
a pot shot at them. I'm not quite that kind, neighbor, and it
couldn't be done, anyway."

"You could put 'em out of the way, and no one would be the wiser,"
hinted the stranger.

"How?"

"I'll show you, when I'm sure enough that you're game," declared
the civilian. "I'd have to be sure you had the nerve."

"I haven't," admitted Private Mock.

"Do you know, I began to think that before you admitted it?" sneered
the other.

"Not the way you mean," flared up the ex-sergeant. "I can be
mean in order to get square with a mean officer. But I can get
along without putting him under the sod. I'm a good hater, but
my mother didn't raise me to be a real crook."

"You're a quitter, I guess," jeered the other. "Anyway, if you
claim to be a man of sand you'll have to show me."

"And I guess it's about time that you showed me something, too,"
challenged Mock, looking furtively at the stoop-shouldered man.

"I'm ready enough to show you a whole lot of things, when I find
out that you're man enough to stand up for yourself and pay back
those who treat yo