e powder-play loose in."

"Wild Charlie" and his band fled as fast as they could, for the
crowd was jeering loudly and talking of taking all six to the
nearest horse-trough for a ducking.

"Is that the best the old town can do for excitement in these
days?" laughed Reade, as soon as our young friends had separated
themselves from the laughing crowd and had started on a stroll.

"Why, that little episode was doing well enough for any town,"
smiled Dick. "A laugh is better than a fight, any day."

"Queer text for a soldier to preach from," grinned Hazelton.

"Not a bit," Dick retorted. "The soldier, above all men, hates
a fight, for the soldier knows he's the only one that's likely
to get hurt."

"Oho!"

"Yes; and moreover," broke in Greg, "armies aren't organized,
in the first place, for fighting, but for preserving peace."

"Just as railroads are built to keep people from traveling," jeered
Reade.

"If we don't look out the greatest excitement that we'll find today
will be starting a fight among ourselves," warned Harry dryly.

"Rot!" scoffed Tom. "The old chums of Dick & Co. couldn't fight
each other, any more that they can avoid joshing each other."

Though none of the chums guessed it, excitement enough for two
of them, possible, was brewing in another part of Gridley at that
moment.

Bert Dodge was talking almost in whispers with a young fellow
named Fessenden, who had discharged from the bank in which Bert's
father was vice president.

"You do my trick---put it through for me, Fessenden---and I'll
do my best with my father to get you back in the bank," Bert promised.

"Even if I fail in that, I'll pay you well, in addition to the
money I've just given you."

"Oh, it won't be a hard job to put through," nodded young Fessenden,
understandingly. "I can find two fellows who have nerve enough,
and who will go into court and swear to anything I want them to."

"That's the talk!" glowed young Dodge. "You will testify that
Dick Prescott was talking with you, and that he told innumerable
lies to blacken my name that he libeled me!"

CHAPTER IV

WHAT ABOUT MR. CAMERON?

One place that Dick Prescott made it a point to visit early in his
furlough was the office of the morning "Blade," for which paper, in
his old High School days, the cadet had worked as a local reporter
"on space."

A "space writer" is one who is paid so much per column for all
matter of his that is published in the pap