Three more disgruntled persons it would be hard to find, excepting possibly the other three of the Banded Seven, who at the moment were wandering disconsolately about the camp. The whole situation was so unutterably amazing, dumfounding. Texas had often talked in his wild Texas way about getting on a "rousing ole spree jest once," and of his intention to "hold up" the cadet battalion some fine day just for a joke; but nobody had ever taken him seriously. And now he had gone to work and done it, and killed two horses, and Heaven only knew how many people besides--for who could say what the crazy cowboy might not have done down at Highland Falls? Why, it made his friends shiver to think of the whole thing! But the situation only grew worse with the thinking; and the three in the tent stared at one another in undiminished consternation and despair.
"Well," muttered Mark a second time. "We're busted!"
They would probably have sat there all morning if it had not been for a small drum orderly outside--the drum orderly sounded the "call to quarters," and a few minutes later the plebes were lined up in the company street, muskets in hand, for drill. And it did not take a very sharp eye to notice that every man in the class was staring curiously at Mark Mallory, the plebe who but a few minutes before had been riding across the parade ground in an attempt to put a whole artillery squadron to flight, and that, too, under the superintendent's very nose.
"Or drunk?" suggested another, laughing. "Oh, say, but I'd hate to be in his place!"
Which last sentiment was held unanimously by the class, and by the rest of the corps, too, as they scattered to their tents. A storm was going to break over Mallory's head in a very, very short while, the cadets predicted.
The prediction proved to be true. One of the cadet officers had barely managed to run over the list of names at roll call before an orderly raced into camp and handed him a message. He read it, and then he read it again, aloud:
"Cadet Mallory will report to the superintendent at once."
And a moment later, while a murmur of excitement ran down the line, Mark stepped out and hurried away down the street.
"The storm breaks now in just about five minutes," thought the corps.