“You can hardly call it being put in jail, Phil,” answered Jack. “In a military academy it is quite common for a cadet, when he has broken the rules and regulations, to be placed in the guardhouse, just the same as he is placed in the guardhouse in the regular army.”
“I thought maybe they’d make us do what they call police duty,” said the boy from Texas. “One fellow told me that while he was in the training camp he overstepped the regulations and they made him peel potatoes until he was sick and tired of seeing them.”
“Well, they do that too,” put in Fred. “You might have to do something like that if we were at the annual encampment. But while the school session is on all they do is to lock you up.”
The boys found that the long narrow room contained two double beds and two cots, as well as a couple of bureaus, several stools, and a table. At one end was a small bathroom and a clothing closet. There were three small windows in a row, all looking out on the snow-covered fields behind the school.
“Well, we’ve got a place to sleep, anyhow,” announced Jack. “Although three of us will have to sleep in one of the beds.”
“Not much in the way of covering,” remarked Gif, who had been making an investigation. “Just one thin blanket on each bed. And that radiator is not letting out heat enough to warm a cat,” he added, as he placed his hand on the one small radiator of which the long bedroom boasted.
“Never mind, we can keep on our uniforms if we want to,” declared Randy. “And who knows but what Colonel Colby may come back at any minute, and then I’m almost certain that he’ll let us go back to our own rooms.”
“He will unless old Duke cooks up some dreadful story against us,” came from his brother. “You can bet he’ll make out as black a case against us as he can.”
“Yes. But I think Professor Grawson will have something to say too,” said Jack. “And he has always been a very fair-minded man.”
“I don’t see why Colonel Colby took on such a man as Snopper Duke,” declared Spouter. “He’s every bit as bad as Asa Lemm was.”