For a few minutes Dick talked earnestly with his chum in low tones, Captain Holmes frequently nodding.
"And now, I think I had better go down to the adjutant's office, to see if he's still at his desk," Dick finished, "and, if so, make my report." "You'll stagger him," Greg predicted.
One of Greg's orderlies had already ridden the major's horse to the stable, so Prescott walked briskly along the street until he came to regimental headquarters.

As he entered the adjutant's office he found Colonel Cleaves seated on the corner of his subordinate's desk, in low-toned conversation with his subordinate.
"Am I intruding, sir ?" Dick inquired, saluting the colonel.
"No," said Colonel Cleaves.

"In fact, Captain, you may as well know the subject-matter of our conversation.

Captain Prescott, this camp would appear to be infested with German spies! This evening sixteen men in F company were taken ill after supper.
They are now in hospital and some of them are expected to die.
The surgeons have examined some of the food left over from that supper and report finding ground glass in some pieces of the apple pie served as dessert.

Later the captain of our machine-gun company, which has only one machine gun so far, had the piece taken into the company mess-room to demonstrate the mechanism to his lieutenants so that they might instruct the men.