k a
roundabout course which soon brought them to the campus, where they
joined Fatty and Ned.

"It's certainly a good joke," was Fatty's comment. "And any fellow who
would be mean enough to dirty a fellow's clothing like that ought to
suffer for it. Gee! I'll bet he's worried!"

Of course, such a joke could not be kept entirely secret, and before
long it was spread among a good many of the cadets. But great care was
taken to keep it from Slugger Brown, Codfish and all the others
belonging to the Martell crowd.

"And now to pay Martell back for his meanness!" said Fred a little
later. "This joke of Randy's is all right as far as it goes, but I
think I'm going to go him one better--that is, if I can get into
Martell's room."

"All right, Fred. Anything you say goes," added Andy, quickly. "Isn't
that so, Randy?"

"Sure thing!"

"Look here! You don't want to get into trouble," warned Jack.

"There won't be much trouble about this," answered Fred. "I am only
going to give Nappy Martell something to think about."

CHAPTER XII

LEARNING TO DRILL

While the Rover boys were talking matters over among themselves, Nappy
Martell had returned to his room, which was connected by a door with
that occupied by Slugger Brown.

"What in thunder made you run off in such a hurry, Nappy?" demanded the
other cadet somewhat surlily. "You didn't answer that question I put to
you at all."

"I had something else to think about," was the reply. "It looks to me
as if I'm in hot water."

"How's that?"

"Do you remember I told you that I placed that Fred Rover's suitcase
down under a stack in the cornfield?"

"Yes."

"Well, I heard Walt Baxter telling Ned Lowe that he had seen a tramp
down in the cornfield running away from one of the stacks with a
suitcase in his hand; so I went down to the cornfield to find out if
the suitcase was still where I had hidden it. It was gone."

"Whew!" Slugger Brown gave a prolonged whistle. "That certainly does
look bad. Did Baxter say where the tramp went?"

"He told Lowe that he had not come towards the Hall, but had gone off
in the opposite direction."

"Then that looks as if the suitcase was gone for good."

"So it does. And I don't know what I'm going to do about it," answered
Nappy Martell, gloomily. "Of course, I didn't think the suitcase would
be stolen."

"And the worst part of it is, the Rovers suspect you of having taken
it," was the comment of Slugger.

"Yes. But th