"Skin you?" repeated Dick. "Yes, sir! If you leave me to bring order out of all this military chaos I'll hand you in to the O.C. in a way that will take every square inch of cuticle from your body."
"Traitor!" hissed Anstey tragically.
"Mister, it's a whole year yet before plebes can sing, laugh, or be happy," came the muttered warning, as one of the newly-made yearlings passed by the tent.
Anstey became silent at once. He had been at West Point long enough to know his place as a plebe.
"Say," whispered Anstey presently, his eyes brimming over with glee, "have you seen poor old Dodge to-day?"
"Not particularly," responded Prescott.
"Well, he's the maddest rookie (recruit) you ever saw! Having been old Dodge's roommate up to reveille this morning, I am in a position to state that he took advantage of the general laxity last night, and slipped out of barracks after taps last night. He and some other embryo cadets got a rowboat, through connivance with a soldier in the engineer's detachment. They rowed across the river, to Garrison, and had some kind of high old racket. It must have been high," added Anstey pensively, "for I happened to turn over in bed this morning, and I saw old Dodge slipping back into the room about an hour before reveille."
"Well, what's he mad about, now?" demanded Dick.
"Why, he has been drawn for the new guard! He's on guard for to-day and to-night!" chuckled Anstey gleefully. "Already dead for sleep, his official duties will keep him without much more sleep for twenty-four hours, or until the new guard goes on to-morrow. Even then he'll have some other things to take up some of his time."
By-and-by the tent was so much and well to rights that, when Cadet Corporal Brodie, of the new yearling class, looked in, he could find no fault with its appearance.