Slowly Durville turned and looked into Prescott’s eyes.  Then he did not speak, but he nodded.

“Thank you, Durville!  Be quick—–­and stealthy!  Let me guide you.”

Class President Douglass stood in the shadow.  He heard Jordan’s own tongue telling the stranger the familiar story of how he, Jordan, had been reported for indolence in the bridge construction work.

“I had to get square,” Jordan was continuing, just as Dick piloted Durville within hearing.

“And you think you did it slickly, I suppose?” jeered the stranger.

Though Jordan did not seem to suspect it, the stranger was seeking this information as another blackmailing club to hold over Jordan’s head.

“Slick?” queried Jordan, with a sneer.  “Well, it wasn’t altogether that.  There was a good bit of luck in the whole job, too, but Prescott is in Coventry, and there he’ll stick, too.  He’ll be away from here inside of two or three days more.”

“How did you manage to do it?” asked the stranger, concealing his anxiety to have Jordan tell the story.

CHAPTER XIV

THE STORY CARRIED ON THE WIND

“Oh, I fixed it all right,” insisted Jordan confidently.

He was speaking in a rather low tone, but the breeze carried every word to the ears of the listeners.

“You’re talking just to hear yourself talking,” sneered the stranger coarsely.

“No; I’m not, Henckley,” retorted the cadet.

“What was the trick, then?”

“Don’t you wish you knew?” laughed Jordan.

“I don’t care much,” replied the stranger named Henckley.  “But I can’t just picture you as doing anything extremely clever.  Even if it was luck, as you say, I can’t figure how you were smart enough to know how to profit by it.  That’s why I’m just a bit curious, but no more.”

“Why, you see, it happened this way,” went on Jordan.  “I saw Prescott, that night back into camp, going into the tent of the O.C.  I thought that perhaps Prescott was going there in order to say more about the matter that he had reported me for that forenoon.  So I moved close and listened.  It seemed that some of the plebes had been running the guard nights.  Lieutenant Denton asked the fellow Prescott, who is a cadet captain, to keep a watch and stop plebes before they had a chance to get on the other side of the guard line.

“Well, I knew the point at which plebes were in the habit of getting past the guard line, and so did Prescott, I guess.  So, a little after taps, I slipped outside the guard near where I judged Prescott would be watching.  Then, after I had heard him speak with the cadet sentry I presently stooped low in the bushes and lit a cigar.  Then I stood up straight and the glowing end of the cigar showed from where Prescott stood.  He did just what a fellow like him feels bound to do, and what I knew he’d