at his classmate. "Jordan, don't say anything that will compel
me to knock you down in plain sight of the camp. It's years since
such a thing as that has happened at West Point!"

"Oh, you lordly brute!" sneered Jordan, his face alternately white
and aflame with unreasoning anger. "Prescott, you had it in for
me. That was why you reported me this morning. That was why
you put me in line for demerits and punishment tour walking.
You are bound to use your little, petty authority to humble and
humiliate me. I shall call you out for this!"

"If you do," shot back Dick, "I shall decline to fight you.
It would be against regulations and against all the traditions
of the corps for me to arbitrate, by a fight, the question of
whether I did right to report you."

"You refuse a fight," warned Jordan, with a malicious grin, "and
I'll denounce you all through the class!"

"Denounce me, then, if you wish," retorted Dick in cool contempt,
"and you'll bring trouble down on your own head instead. No class
requires, or permits, a member to fight in defence of his official
conduct."

"Prescott is turning coward, then, is he?"

"You or any other man who presumes to say it knows well enough
that he is thereby lying," came quickly from between Prescott's
teeth.