The lights from the windows of the barracks soon appeared through the trees, and Frank felt relieved when he was safely within the grounds with the academy buildings looming before him.
A short time later he entered his own room in the "Cock-loft," to find Bartley Hodge sitting with his feet on the table, smoking a cigarette and perusing an exciting detective story; but the feet went down to the floor like a flash, and the cigarette and book disappeared with magical swiftness as Frank came in.
"Oh!" said Hodge, with a sigh of relief; "it's you, is it, Merriwell? I thought it might be an inspector."
Frank laughed.
"It would have been rather bad for you if I had been an inspector, for you did not get that book and cigarette out of sight quick enough to fool anybody, and the air is full of smoke. You would have stood a good chance for chevrons next month if you had let cigarettes and novels alone and taken a little more care to avoid demerit."
"Never mind, old man," said Hodge, as he resumed the cigarette and brought forth the detective story again.
"You'll be a corporal sure, and that is glory enough for us. Don't preach. If you should start in on this yarn, you wouldn't give it up till you finished it."
"And that is exactly why I am not going to start in. I enjoy a good story as well as you do, but I cannot afford to read novels, now, and so I refuse to be tempted into looking into any of them."
"This is a hummer," declared Bart, enthusiastically. "It is full of mystery and murder and all that. Beagle Ben, the detective, is a corker! That fellow can look a man over and tell what he had for dinner by the expression around the corners of his mouth. He sees through a crook as easily as you can look through a plate-glass window. And the mysteries in this story are enough to give a fellow the nightmare. I wonder why such mysterious things never happen in real life?"
"Perhaps they do occasionally."