Now that any plebe had dared to do such a bold trick had never occurred to the cadets. They were convinced that some of their number were guilty, and they protected them in the usual way. Not a man moved. They refused to obey the order.
The commandant was furious, of course. He tried it the other way, ordered the guilty ones to advance. Whereupon the whole corps stepped forward to share the blame. To punish them he tried the dodge of keeping them standing at attention for half an hour or so, but several dropped from well-feigned exhaustion, which stopped that scheme.
He ordered one of the "tacs" to march them around the parade ground. The cadets, who were out for fun by this time and angry besides, guyed the unpopular "tac" with a vengeance. It was too dark for him to distinguish any one, and so every one obeyed orders wrong, producing chaos and finally compelling him to summon the commandant to preserve order.
With the commandant watching, those weary cadets marched for an hour more. Then he asked some questions and again got no answers. And finally in disgust he sent them off to their tents, most of them still puzzled as to who did it, some of them wild with joy.
These last were the Banded Seven—"B. B. J."
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT MARK OVERHEARD.
"Now, captain, there are no two ways about it, this business has got to stop, and stop right where it is."
The speaker was Colonel Harvey, superintendent of the West Point Military Academy. He was sitting in the guardhouse tent of the camp and talking to Captain Quincey.
"Yes," he repeated, slapping his leg for emphasis, "it's got to stop."