"Do you imagine they're getting together just to talk about you?" demanded Private Terry half indignantly. "Wake up, Hal; keep your eyes open, and I'll do the same. They're two, but we are two, also. If you don't go to sleep, Hal, I think we can prove ourselves equal to anything that that pair may try to do. But you don't want to forget that they are certainly plotting to do something to get you into trouble. Whatever gets you into trouble also puts a bad mark on your record as a soldier and threatens to interfere with your promotion." "If Hooper and Dowley get busy along those lines," muttered Hal, his eyes blazing, "they'll find that they have a sure fight on their hands." "That's the way to talk, old fellow," approved Noll Terry, his eyes shining eagerly. "And don't think I'm foolish, either, in the warning that I'm giving you." "Thank you, Noll; I guess it will be as well to be ordinarily alert, where that pair are concerned. It never does any fellow harm to have his eyes open at all times." Readers of the previous volume in this series, "UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE RANKS," will need no introduction to Privates Hal Overton and Noll Terry, of the Thirty-fourth United States Infantry, stationed at Fort Clowdry, in the lower Rockies of Colorado. Hal and Noll were bright, typical American boys when, at the age of eighteen, back in their New Jersey home town, they decided that their careers in life were to be found through enlisting in the Army. It was in April that they enlisted, after which they were sent to a recruit rendezvous near New York City. At the recruit rendezvous the two young "rookies," as recruits are commonly termed in the service, were whipped very thoroughly into shape. While at the recruit rendezvous the two rookies distinguished themselves by preventing the desertion of a corporal who was in arrest. For this service they were commended in orders. On the way to their regiment in Colorado the boys were present when an attempt was made to hold up the United States mail train. An Army officer, Major Davis, of the Seventeenth Cavalry, ordered them to assist him in resisting an attack on the mail car. In the encounter that followed some of the train robbers were shot, others then surrendering to Major Davis. That same night Major Davis wired the colonel of the Thirty-fourth, speaking of the young recruits in high terms for their prompt obedience and their grit under trying circumstances. So Overton and Terry, on joining their regiment the next morning, found themselves in high favor. Of course the young soldiers had to endure the usual amount of "hazing" when they took up their new life in the squad room. But this they did with a combination of grit and good humor that soon won them the respect of the older soldiers.