"I'll picture you!"

"I thought I was doing my best."

"Show me off for a donkey! If it wasn't against the rules I'd--I'd wollop you!"

"A donkey! Oh, Peleg, I did nothing of the kind! Here is your picture, on my word of honor."

"It's a donkey's head, I say."

"And I say it's your picture. I'll leave it to anybody in the crowd."

"I guess I know a donkey's head when I see it, Master Rover. I didn't expect no such joke from you, though your brother Tom might have played it."

"Boys, isn't this a good picture?" demanded Sam, showing up the other side of the tin square.

"Why, splendid!" came from the crowd.

"Peleg, there is some mistake here."

"Oh, you can't joke me no more!" returned the utility man.

"But just look!" pleaded Sam. "Isn't that a good picture of you?

If you don't say so yourself I'll give you five dollars."

He handed the tin over again, this time with the opposite side toward Snuggers. He had just breathed on it heavily.

"Now blow on it," he continued, and Snuggers did as directed.

The moisture cleared away, revealing the face of the utility man in a bit of looking-gla.s.s!

"Oh, you're tremendously smart, you are!" muttered Snuggers, and walked off. But he was not half as angry as he had been a few minutes before.

CHAPTER XII

d.i.c.k VISITS DORA STANHOPE

"Battalion, fall in. Attention! Carry arms!"

It was several days later, and the cadets were out for their first parade around the grounds. d.i.c.k still retained his position as second lieutenant of Company A, having been re-elected the term previous. Tom was first sergeant of Company B, while Sam was still "a high private in the rear rank," as the saying goes.

The day was an ideal one in the early autumn, and Captain Putnam and George Strong were both on hand to watch the drilling. Major Bart Conners had graduated the year before, and his place was now filled by Harry Blossom, formerly captain of Company A.

"Shoulder arms!" came the next order. "Battalion, forward march!"

Tap! tap! tap, tap, tap! went the drums, and then the ba.s.s drum joined in, and the two companies moved off. Soon the fifers struck up a lively air, and away went the cadets, down the road, around grounds, and to the mess hall for supper.

The boys felt good to be in the ranks once more, and Captain Putnam congratulated them on their soldierly appearance.

"It does me good to see that you have not forgotten your former instructions in drilling and marching," he said. "I trust that during the present term we shall see even better results, so that the work done here may compare favorably with that done at West Point."

The school had now begun to settle down, and inside of a few days everything was working smoothly.

"What a difference it makes to have Dan Baxter and Mumps absent!"

observed Tom to d.i.c.k. "We don't have any of the old-fashion rows any more."

"I'd like to know what Mumps and Josiah Crabtree were up to," put in the elder Rover. "It's queer we didn't hear any more of them.

I'm going to get off soon and try and see Dora Stanhope. Perhaps she knows what Crabtree is doing."

On that day Frank Harrington received a letter from his father, in which the senator stated that nothing more had been heard of the men who had looted Rush & Wilder's safe. "I fancy they have left the State, if not the country," was Mr. Harrington's comment.

The three Rover boys got off the next day and took a walk past the cottages where resided the Lanings and the Stanhopes. At the Lanings' place Nellie and Grace came out to greet them.

"So you are back!" cried Nellie, blushing sweetly. "Father said you were. He saw you come in at Cedarville."

"Yes, back again, and glad to meet you," answered Tom, and gave the girl's hand a tight squeeze, while Sam and d.i.c.k also shook hands with both girls.

"And how do you feel?" asked Grace of d.i.c.k. "Wasn't that dreadful the way Mr. Baxter treated you on that train?"

"Well, he got the worst of it," answered d.i.c.k.

"Oh, I know that! And now they suspect him of a robbery in Albany. Papa was reading it in one of the Ithaca papers."

"Yes, and I guess he's guilty, Grace. But tell me, does Josiah Crabtree worry Mrs. Stanhope any more?" continued the boy seriously.

"Why to be sure he does! And, oh, let me tell you something!

Dora told me that he was terribly angry over having been sent to Chicago on a wild-goose chase."

"I wish he had remained out there."

"So do all of us," said Nellie Laning. "He seems bound to marry aunty, in spite of our opposition and Dora's."

"How is your aunt now?"

"She is not very well. Do you know, I think Mr. Crabtree exercises some sort of a strange influence over her."

"I think that myself. If he could do it, I think he would hypnotize her into marrying him. He is just rascal enough. Of course he is after the money Mrs. Stanhope is holding in trust for Dora."

"He can't touch that."

"He can--if he can get hold of it. I don't think Josiah Crabtree cares much for the law. Is Dora home now?"

"I believe she is. She was this morning, I know."

"I'm going over to see her," went on d.i.c.k. "I promised to do all I could for her in this matter of standing Crabtree off, and I'm going to keep my word."