“I don’t care!” shouted Gallegher. “I’d say it again if he did that to me. If Blackie was a gentleman, he wouldn’t have given me that airplane ride. It’s his fault as much as mine. Why don’t you give him the chain gang, too?”
“Blackie!”
“Yes, sir.” Blackie, chuckling happily to himself at the thought of the row he had raised, sat up and leaned on one arm.
“Didn’t I ask you and the other fellows to key down after Taps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Take your blankets and go sleep on the ground by the flagpole to-night.”
“But why? I didn’t do a thing but get back at him for sticking pine-cones in my bunk!”
“On your way. When you can behave decently, you can sleep with the rest of us again.”
Sullenly, and making as much noise about it as he dared, Blackie put on his slippers and gathered up his pillow and blankets over his arm. The night air was cool, and he shivered slightly in his pajamas. A pine tree’s branch brushed the canvas tent-roof above his head, and somewhere off up the mountain a dog howled dismally. It didn’t look too inviting out on the darkened campus by the flagpole; but he didn’t want to appear a coward and whine to get out of going.
“Good-night, you guys,” he said with bravado and stalked out of the rear of the tent. As he passed the bunk across from the leader’s, on his way out, Slater stuffed something among Blackie’s blankets with a whispered caution.