well!"

Cadet Prescott, midway on his post, came to a halt, bringing his
rifle to port arms.

"Post number three! Eleven o'clock, and all's well."

Nor did the plebe return his rifle to his shoulder and resume pacing
until he heard the hail taken up and repeated by the man on
number four. Thus the call traveled the rounds, back to number
one, and died out.

Just an instant later Plebe Prescott became suspicious that
something was wrong in his immediate vicinity.

Rain was threatening, and the sultry night was so dark that, on this
shaded post, the young sentry could see barely a few yards away
from him.

Yet Dick was certain he saw something flash darkly by, not far
away. It could hardly have been a shadow. Whatever it was, a
clump of bushes now concealed the moving something.

"Halt! Who's there?" hailed Cadet Prescott. He stopped to listen,
bringing his rifle once more down to port arms.

There was no response.

Certain, however, that his senses had not been deluded, the young
sentry stepped quickly toward the clump of bushes.

From the other side of the bushes came a sudden sound of
scrambling.

"Halt! Who's there?" demanded Prescott again.

Whoever it was, and plainly there was more than one man there,
the prowlers had no mind to be held up by the sentry or the guard.

"Halt, or I'll run a bayonet into you!" shouted Prescott resolutely.
"Corporal of the guard, post number three!" he bellowed aloud.

At the same time he was darting after the fugitives, whom it was
too dark to distinguish. From the very little that his eyes could
make out, however, it was his belief that the running men were
cadets.

Then one must have stumbled and fallen, for a figure lay between
two bushes as Prescott dashed up.

"Don't you attempt to rise until you get the word, or you'll feel the
jab of my bayonet," warned Dick.

He couldn't follow the others much further, anyway, as he had no
authority to leave his post. The man on number four must have
heard, and would be alert.

"Where are you, number three sentry!" came Cadet Corporal
Brodie's hail.

"Here, sir!" Dick answered. He still stood watching the figure that
lay in the shadow of the bushes. The fallen one had not attempted
to move. Dick Prescott was close enough to make a thrust with his
bayonet-tipped rifle if the fallen one made any effort to leap up.

That was as close as Dick intended to get until help was at hand,
for an old trick with cadets running