Hike read the note twice, then yawned, “So Wibbelty-Wobbelty wants to scare us, eh? How unkind!” He turned over and slept peacefully for another hour. He was awakened by a call from Poodle, who shouted, “Say, Bat has gone and confessed to the government about how they were going to try to rob the Patent Office, and the federal secret service is after Jolls and his thugs, already. And say, the Army Board has telegraphed Priest, accepting the tetrahedral.” “Good. Have they got Captain Welch?” “No. I guess he made his getaway.” “Too bad. Because I’m awful’ scared. Here’s a note from him.” Poodle read through the note, and asked anxiously. “Aw, he’s just kidding, isn’t he, Hike?” “No. I don’t think he is.” “Gee. Aren’t you worried?” “Not much,” smiled Hike, and he looked it. “What worries me a whole lot more,” he continued, “is that we’ll have to get back to Santa Benicia Academy, in a few days—and oh! how the fellows will kid us, for getting conspicuous, and us only Sophomores. That’s the real thing to worry about.” “Um-_huh_,” agreed Poodle, gloomily. CHAPTER XVII AT SANTA BENICIA ACADEMY Santa Benicia Military Academy, California. It is a peaceful, beautiful place, with no signs of hurrying tetrahedrals or busy Army Boards. White and purple figs overhang the walk to the main building, and beside it there are little stretches of grass, shaded by orange trees, or tulip trees filled with great white blossoms. Keep along the walk, and you come to the Yard, surrounded by vine-covered dormitories. Beyond the Yard are the stretches of the athletic field and parade ground. Everywhere are palms, and grape vines, and giant roses. A beautiful place, and an ideal school for boys. For, even though it is a military academy, there are practically no rules. The students are expected to be gentlemen—there are no “bounds,” almost no “hours.” Messrs. Hike Griffin and Poodle Darby trotted through the Yard gate, their arms about each other’s shoulders, singing the newly revised class song: “We stung ’em, see? we stung ’em, see? Oh, the Jun-i-ors are wild.” They were trying to look peacefully happy. But they were not happy in the least. Poodle put it right when he said they felt like clams who had strayed out of their rivers and gotten fried, and then tried to go back to the mud and pretend they’d never seen a stove. For every chap who passed them, except for the new Freshmen, shouted something like this: “Hello, aviators. Brought your airyplane? When do I get a ride?” Poodle admitted that they felt “like digging a hole and crawling into it, and pulling the hole in after them,” when the great Pink Eye Morrison, president of the Senior Class, and baseball-captain, stopped, raised his school cap to them, and remarked: “It isest a great honor you doest us poor slobs, O thou Griffin and thou Darby in the vocative, to visit us in the midst of—” “Oh, _please_ cheese it,” begged Hike, and Pink Eye passed on, with an unholy smile.