“I’ll call him over and find out,” said Jack, and beckoned to the distant boy. Sabine came up slowly, as though revolving something of importance in his mind.
“Well, Billy, how goes it?” began the young major, sociably.
“Pretty well,” was Sabine’s short reply. “Going to have a great drill to-morrow, I suppose.”
“We hope to have. And I trust you’ll polish up for it.”
“I know you are, and I am glad of it. I wish I could say as much for every cadet in the battalion.”
There was a pause, and Billy Sabine rubbed his chin with his hand, a habit he had when turning something over in his mind. He was rather a slow thinker at the best.
“You want to put on your best front, don’t you?”
“Then you had better watch out that somebody doesn’t play a trick on you,” and with this remark Billy Sabine started to walk away.
“Play a trick?” repeated the young major. “What do you mean?”
“Billy must know of something,” cried Pepper, his suspicions aroused.
“Call him back,” added Andy, and this was done. The other boy returned rather unwillingly.
“Who is going to play a trick on me?” demanded Jack.
“Why—er—I didn’t say he was going to play a trick—I only said for you to watch out.”
“You act as if you knew of something,” said Pepper. “If you do you had better say so.”
“I—er—I thought I’d warn you, that’s all.”
“But what do you know—come, out with it,” and now Jack caught the cadet by the arm, so that he could not run away. Billy Sabine looked around suspiciously.
“If I tell you, you won’t give me away, will you?” he asked, in a low voice.
“I shan’t say a word unless you promise. I’m not going to get myself in a hole on your account.”
“Then you do know something!” cried Pepper. “Well, if you don’t tell us what it is, and anything happens, we’ll blame you, so there!”
“I’m not going to do anything!” exclaimed Sabine, in fresh alarm.
“What do you know?” said Jack, and now his voice was stern.
“I—er—I was down back of the boat-house awhile ago and I heard Reff Ritter, Gus Coulter, and Nick Paxton talking. They are all down on your crowd.”
“We know that,” answered Pepper, briefly.
“They didn’t see me, and I heard most of what they said, although not all.”
“And what did they say?” questioned Andy.
“First they talked about you”—Sabine nodded to the young major. “Ritter has a plan to spoil your things—sword and all that—so they won’t show up good at the inspection. He is going to get something down to the Cedarville drug store to-night and sprinkle or rub it on everything. After Ritter unfolded his plan he and the others agreed to fix up your whole crowd in the same way—so the inspection would be ruined, so far as you were concerned. They want to put you in disgrace with Captain Putnam.”