"Where's them fellers?" he murmured, looking around for his tormentors. "By gum! they've slipped! I've bin fooled!"
After giving him some sharp advice, the lieutenant sent him into his tent, and departed.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
AN OPEN INSULT.
The spirit of mischief seemed to break loose in the camp that night. A dozen times were some of the plebes hauled out of bed and slid around the streets enveloped in their own blankets, ridden on a tentpole, or an old wheelbarrow, tossed in tent flies, or nearly smothered with smoke that filled their tents from the burning of some vile-smelling stuff.
Time after time was the guard turned out to capture the perpetrators of these tricks, but still alarm followed alarm, and not one of the jokers was captured.
Every inspection seemed to show the older cadets all in their beds and sleeping with amazing soundness, considering the racket that was going on.
Lieutenant Gordan was at his wits' end, for never had there been such an outbreak in camp since his coming to Fardale, and he began to believe there was something radically wrong about the system as enforced at the academy.
The professors were driven from their tents and compelled to take refuge in the academy in order to get any sleep, and they all felt like resigning their positions and seeking occupations in other walks of life.