At that time Fred Century was a pupil at Pornell Academy, but Fred became so disgusted at the actions of Roy Bock, Bat Sedley, and some others, that he quit the rival institution of learning and came to Putnam Hall, where he was given a warm welcome.
The encounters that Jack and his chums had with Reff Ritter and his cronies were numerous, and more than once Ritter did his best to get the young major into serious trouble.

Once he drugged Jack with some French headache powders, and when he was exposed Captain Putnam would have expelled him had not Jack very generously asked that he be given another chance.

For this any ordinary youth would have been grateful, but gratitude did not appear to be a part of Reff Ritter's make-up, and he soon showed himself to be as mean as ever.
For some time matters ran along smoothly at Putnam Hall, but then came trouble of an entirely new kind.

Once, during the absence of Captain Putnam and George Strong, the school was left in charge of two other teachers--Josiah Crabtree and Pluxton Cuddle.

Crabtree was dictatorial to a degree and Cuddle was a man of queer ideas, one being that boys ate entirely too much.
As told in the volume called "The Putnam Rebellion," the two teachers sought to subdue the boys by starving them and locking them in their dormitories.