to the ranks.

"Are you going to stand it?" demanded the stranger.

"Fat chance I'll have to beat the captain's game!" declared Mock
angrily.

"But are you going to pay him back?"

"How?"

"Listen. I was in the Army once, and I don't like these officer
boys. Maybe I've something against your captain, too. Anyway,
keep mum and take good advice, and I'll help you to make him wish
he'd never been born."

"Not a chance!" dissented Sergeant Mock promptly. "Captain Holmes
isn't afraid of anything, and besides he was born lucky. Besides
that, do anything to hurt him, and you've got Captain Prescott
against you, too, and ready to rip you up the back."

"It's as easy to put 'em both in bad as it is to do it to either,"
promised the stranger. "Now, listen. You-----"




CHAPTER III

BAD BLOOD COMES TO THE SURFACE