One of the fellows found a scorpion in his bed and each night for a week thereafter looked through the bedding for another, but finally became careless and forgot to look. His nearest neighbor promptly placed a number of grasshoppers between the sheets near the foot of the bed. Another evening it was reported that three pole-cats had crawled into a culvert in front of the barracks. For an hour we attempted to smoke them out. When that failed the fire department was called and we washed them out. The smoke had evidently taken effect, however, and soon three dead pole-cats came floating out from the culvert. The next problem was how to make use of such possibilities. That question was worthy of a most careful consideration. After a survey of the barracks we found that our cadet first sergeant was in San Antonio. There was scarcely one of us who did not have some small score to settle with him so we took one of the pillows from his bed and after removing the pillow case, placed it behind one of the pole-cats. The desired results were then obtained by stepping on the back end of the cat, and after cautiously inserting the pillow back in its case, we replaced it on the first sergeant’s bunk. The results were far above expectation. One by one the occupants of that bay arose and carried their cots outside, until by midnight, when our sergeant returned, there were only a half dozen bunks left including his own. By that time the odor had permeated through the other bedding and he was unable to locate the pillow as being the primary cause of offense. Any night for nearly two weeks thereafter our first sergeant and his cot might be located out behind the barracks, and the inspection of quarters, which was to have been held the following morning, was postponed indefinitely. During our last six weeks at Brooks, life became much less difficult. Most of us who had survived the check pilots and “Benzine Board” were reasonably sure of graduating and although our studies were just as exacting as ever, we were able to absorb them much more easily. Also we had passed our primary flying tests and were making cross country flights in T.W.3’s; and learning formation flying in Voughts. And finally we were given a few hours in De Havilands in preparation for the advanced training at Kelly. We were paired up for the cross country flights. One of us flew on the way out, while the second acted as observer. On the return flight we traded about, so that each achieved an equal amount of experience, both as an observer and as a pilot. These trips were usually laid out in a triangular course, and included landing at each corner of the triangle. While on one of our first trips from the home airdrome, we landed in the designated field alongside of a road just as a load of watermelons was passing by, so we carried several of them back to the Detachment in our plane.