two fours. This gave him quite a high score and made him content. Andy and Dale also did well, while Bart Conners tied Ritter. Mumps and Paxton each made two misses on the long distance target.
“More blanks, I suppose,” grumbled Paxton, although he knew better.
“No,” said Captain Putnam. “That was only your carelessness did that. You shot too quickly.”
“I – I’m not feeling well to-day,” said the school sneak lamely. “I ought to have stayed at the Hall.”
After the target practice was at an end the cadets were allowed an hour to themselves.
“Let us take a walk through the woods,” said Pepper. And he and Jack and half a dozen went off in one direction while Reff Ritter and his cronies went off in another. Bob Grenwood felt so bad that he strolled off by himself.
“I must say, I feel sorry for Bob,” said Jack. “Even if he did deal out the blanks, I don’t think he meant to do it.”
“He feels all cut up to lose the quartermastership,” said Dale. “After the captain made him resign I saw the tears standing in his eyes.”
“What do you say if we go to Captain Putnam and ask him to reinstate Grenwood?” questioned Pepper, who was always ready to help anybody in distress.
“I’ll do that willingly,” came from several of the others.
“I don’t think we ought to go right away,” said Bart Conners. “Wait a few days – until his temper has a chance to cool. Finding the blanks riled him all up.”
“By the way, fellows, have you heard the news?” asked Joe Nelson.
“What news?”
“A new teacher is coming.”
“Who told you that?” asked Pepper.
“Nobody. I heard Captain Putnam and Mr. Strong talking about it. It seems Mr. Strong has got to go away on business, and the new man is coming during his absence.”
“Who is he, did you hear, Joe?” asked several, for they were always anxious concerning their instructors.
“Hope he isn’t like old Crabtree,” was Pepper’s comment. “If he is I’ll feel like jumping into the lake!”
“I don’t know anything about him, excepting that his name is Pluxton Cuddle.”
“Pluxton Cuddle!” cried The Imp. “Wonder if he’ll try to cuddle up to us?”
“I did hear that he was quite a scientist,” went on Joe Nelson. “One of the kind who does everything by rule.”
“Oh, dear! I can see my finish!” sighed Pepper. “It will be ten minutes for this, ten minutes for that, and so on, all day long. And find out the whyforness of the thus of everything in the bargain!”
“Oh, don’t worry beforehand,” answered Jack. “He may be another Mr. Strong.”
“Not much, Jack! Mr. Strong is one teacher out of a hundred, heaven bless him!”
“If all teachers were like Mr. Strong, going to boarding school would be a cinch,” added Andy, slangily. “He’s the dearest man who ever tried to teach a fellow the value of x and y, and don’t you forget it!”
“And I firmly believe we learn twice as much under a man like Mr. Strong as we do under old Josiah Crabtree, – although Crabtree may be the greater scholar,” came from Stuffer.
The cadets spent a pleasant time in the woods, and at the roll of the drum hastened back to the pasture. When the two companies were formed it was found Bob Grenwood was missing.
“He got disgusted and said he was going to walk back to the Hall alone,” said one of the students. “I can’t say that I blame him much. It was a terrible thing to be made to resign.”
In a few minutes more the line of march back to Putnam Hall was taken up. To give the cadets a variety of scene, Captain Putnam took to another road than that pursued in the morning. This was nearly a mile longer, and, consequently, it was after the supper hour when the cadets came in sight of the school buildings.
As the cadets marched up to the campus a man came rushing out of the school holding up his hands in horror. It was Josiah Crabtree.
“Captain Putnam! Captain Putnam!” he gasped. “Come quickly! Something dreadful has happened!”
CHAPTER V
A “ROUGH HOUSE” AT PUTNAM HALL
“What is the matter, Mr. Crabtree?” demanded the master of the school, as he dismounted from his horse and strode forward.
“The schoolrooms, sir – and the sitting room and library! All turned topsy-turvy!”
“What!”
“Yes, sir! I just came in from the village – I went on a little business, as you know. When I got back I went to the library for a book – ‘The History of Turkey’ – and when I got there!” Josiah Crabtree held up his hands mutely. “It is a shame, an outrage, sir! And the classrooms are about as bad!”
“I’ll see about this,” said Captain Putnam, and strode into the school.
“Something is wrong,” said Pepper, after the cadets had broken ranks. “Let’s see what it is!” And he ran off to place his weapon in the gun rack.
Something was indeed wrong, as a hasty glance around the lower floor of the school building revealed. Every book in the library had been thrown on the floor, and to the general heap were added several pictures and maps taken from the walls. Two inkstands from a writing desk had been overturned, one on a table and over a beautiful statue of Justice standing on a pedestal in a corner. The floor rug had been folded up and thrown over a chandelier.
“Who did this?” demanded the master of the school sternly. “Who did this, I say?”
Nobody answered for the reason that nobody knew.
“And the schoolrooms are as bad,” cried Josiah Crabtree. “Never have I seen the equal, sir!”
Without loss of time Captain Putnam walked from one classroom to another and the cadets and teachers followed him, and so did some of the frightened servants. In every room books and papers were scattered in all directions. On a big school globe rested an old silk hat, and an old linen duster that Josiah Crabtree occasionally used in warm weather.
“Look at that! The rascals!” spluttered the irate teacher. “My coat, sir! It makes the globe look like a – a – scarecrow, sir!”
“It certainly does,” answered Captain Putnam, and for an instant he felt inclined to laugh. At the same time Pepper burst into a roar and Andy and some others did the same.
“This is a rough house and no mistake,” murmured Jack. “Who did it, I wonder?”
“Somebody has been here during our absence,” said Dale.
“Boys, stop your laughing!” exclaimed Josiah Crabtree, turning suddenly upon Pepper and his chums.
