"All very well," grinned Dick "But how are you going to prove it, if the yearlings catch you napping tonight?"
"They won't," retorted Dodge pompously. "They shan't. And if any fellow, I don't care who he is, tries to rush my post to-night he'll feel the steel of one of Uncle Sam's bayonets prodding him in the tenderest part of his worthless carcass!"
"Look out, Dodge!" cautioned Greg softly. "Don't let any of the yearlings hear you canning a brag like that, or they'll get you if they have to turn out the whole class after taps to do the job."
"Let 'em try it!" insisted Dodge. "And you fellows are at liberty to tell anyone that I said it."
With that the speaker turned and strolled out of the tent, looking rather miffed.
"The pompous old idiot!" muttered Anstey, in a tone of pained disgust. "Oh, why did ever fond parents let a mentally irresponsible chap like that come to a place like West Point for anyway?"
"Our skirts are clear, anyway," remarked Dick Prescott consolingly. "We told him all we knew. If he doesn't act upon it, it's his rifle, not ours, that gets fouled."
Dodge not only believed the hoax to be impossible, with him on number three, but he was incautious enough to talk about it freely among the plebes during the day.
As was almost certain to happen, one of the yearlings heard Dodge sounding his trumpet of brag. That yearling, on the other side of a tent wall, grinned, and presently took counsel with other yearlings.
It was almost at the stroke of taps that night when Bert Dodge marched from guard tent with the relief under Cadet Corporal Hasbrouck.