September was again at hand, and the cadets at Fardale Military Academy had broken camp, and returned to barracks. For all of past differences, which had been finally settled between them-for all that they had once been bitter enemies, and were by disposition and development as radically opposite as the positive and negative points of a magnetic needle, Frank Merriwell and Bartley Hodge had chosen to room together. There was to be no more "herding" in fours, and so Barney Mulloy, the Irish lad, and Hans Dunnerwust, the Dutch boy, were assigned to another room. Like Hodge, Barney and Hans were Frank Merriwell's stanch friends and admirers. They were ready to do anything for the jolly young plebe, who had become popular at the academy, and thus won both friends and foes among the older cadets. Barney was shrewd and ready-witted, while Hans, for all of his speech and his blundering ways, was much brighter than he appeared. Still being plebes, Merriwell and Hodge had been assigned to the "cock-loft" of the third division, which meant the top floor on the north side of the barracks-the sunless side.