ned to him. His clothing locked up! That clothing had figured
largely in his plan in coming to the hospital.

"Now I have played the fool!" thought the cadet. "I'd planned to get
out on the sly tonight, while in here officially. Now I can't get out
except in pajamas in which I'd be spotted before I'd gone ten feet!
Hang the fool regulations of this hospital!"

All day Dodge lay fuming. Lieutenant Doctor Herman visited him
twice, still unwilling to say nothing was wrong. For one thing,
Bert was so angry that he could not eat, and that in itself is unusual
in a healthy cadet who lives a very strenuous life. Anger also gave
him a flushed face and an exceptional look about the eyes. Yet,
there was nothing apparent to make a physician believe there was
anything serious the matter.

Bert had the ward to himself, being the only patient in the
building. It was eight o'clock when a man in the uniform of the
hospital corps came in to turn the lights low.

"Benton!" exclaimed Dodge. "What brings you here?"

"Is that you, Mr. Dodge?" asked Private Benton, approaching Bert's
bed. "I'm sorry to see you sick, sir."

"I'm not sick, Benton. But, again, what are you doing here?" Benton
was an enlisted man who, for pay, had been accustomed to serving
Dodge more or less surreptitiously.

"My enlistment ran out last week, sir. So I quit the cavalry to try a
three-year term in the hospital corps."

Here was Cadet Dodge's opportunity! He bribed Benton to bring
him his clothes and to promise silence.

"It would be time in a military prison for me if I told, sir; so you
can be sure I'll keep still," was Benton's remark as he let the cadet
out of a back door.

As he went softly in through the east sally port, Dodge noted with
joy that almost nobody was around.

"I can get by without detection," he chuckled. He did get just
inside the doorway of the subdivision in which Cadets Prescott and
Holmes dwelt before he attracted attention. There he passed two
yearlings.

"Is that you, Mr. Dodge?" rather sharply demanded one of these
yearlings.

"No, sir," Dodge replied in a strained voice and sped on upstairs.

"Queer," muttered one of the yearlings. "I was almost positive that
was Mr. Dodge."

Dodge was by this time in Dick Prescott's darkened room. He stole
over to the fireplace where he worked quickly.

"I've fixed your career here, Dick Prescott!" gloated the
treacherous youth.

CHAPTER XX

CONCLUSION

Dick Presco