CHAPTER XIII.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE BATTLE.
It does not take long for news of so exciting a matter as a really important fight to spread among the corps. No sooner did the Parson leave camp than cadets began to stroll in to find out why he had come, and, learning, they hurried off to discuss the news with their own tentmates. So it happened that by the time the cadets marched down to mess hall to supper every man in the battalion knew that Mark Mallory, the B. J. beast, had succeeded in getting another chance at "Billy" Williams. The plebes knew of it, too. When their rather ragged and scattered company fell in behind the corps at barracks, they were all talking about it, at least when the file closers weren't near. At supper nobody talked of anything else, and everybody in the room was eying Mark and his stalwart opponent and speculating as to what the chances would be.
"Billy'll do him!" vowed the yearlings. "There's nobody in the class that stands more chance."
And the plebes feared it would be that way, too, and yet there were a few at the tables discussing the matter in whispers, venturesome enough to say that perhaps maybe their classmate might win and to wonder what on earth would happen to him if he did.
"It'll mean a revelation if he does!" they cried. "Perhaps it'll even stop hazing."
The mood of the irate little corporal, who had vowed not an hour before that Mallory should not have another chance, may well be imagined.
"I tell you, 'tis a shame!" he vowed to Williams. "A shame! I don't see why in thunder you didn't hold out."
"It's not my fault, Jasper," responded the other, smiling good naturedly. "If you'll think a while, you'll see he was in a position to force a fight at any time he chose. If I refused to 'allow him to threaten to hit me,' as he put it, he could have threatened anyway, and then if that didn't do any good, he'd have actually to hit me, and there you would have been. It's a great deal better this way."
"Yes!" growled Jasper. "That sounds all very well. But look where it puts me, by George! You'll have to get somebody else to arrange it. I won't. I went as a committee and told him he'd not get another chance, and I tell you now I'll not go take it back for anybody, and with that B. J. plebe especially."