"They are, if they've gone forward in the game, instead of backward,"

Darrin replied honestly.

"But you and Dalzell can hold 'em, can't you?" demanded Hepson anxiously.

"I don't dare brag," Dave answered. "The truth, if anything, is that Danny boy and I can hardly hope to hold the Army pair back. You see, Hep, I know Prescott and Holmes pretty well, from the fact that we played together on the same High School eleven for two years. Prescott, in fact, was the boy who trained us all."

"Well, don't let the Navy fellows get the idea that you're afraid of that Army pair," begged Hepson. "It might get our men discouraged. Darry, we simply must wipe up the field with the Army! There isn't--there can't be any such word as 'defeat' for us."

As the time drew near for the greatest of all annual games the instructors at the Naval Academy began to record lower marks for nearly all of the men in the daily recitations. The midshipmen simply couldn't keep their minds from wandering to the gridiron. It meant so much--to beat the Army!

Then quickly enough the feverish day came. Early in the forenoon the entire brigade of midshipmen, in uniform, was marched into town behind the Naval Academy band. Scores of Navy officers, with their ladies, went along. A lot of the townspeople followed in the big rush to Odenton and Baltimore. From there two sections of a special train conveyed the Annapolis host to Philadelphia.

Franklin Field was reached, and one of the most brilliant athletic and social events of the year was on.

We shall not attempt to follow the course of the game here. The Navy eleven hurled itself into the fray with undying heroism, but the Army won the great game. It is all told in the third volume of "THE WEST POINT SERIES," ent.i.tled "d.i.c.k PRESSCOTT'S THIRD YEAR AT WEST POINT." In that volume, too, is described the meeting of the old-time High School chums, their first meeting since the old-time days back in the tome town of Gridley.

The game was over at last. The Navy was crestfallen, though not a sign of sorrow or humiliation showed in the jaunty step of the men of the brigade as they marched back to the railway station and took the train for the first stage of the journey home--the run between Philadelphia and Baltimore.

On the train Hepson hunted up Dave and Dan.

"You did your best, fellows, I know, that," murmured the defeated football captain. "And you gave me, in advance, a fair estimate of that Army pair, Prescott and Holmes. Say, but they're a pair of terrors! If we had that pair on the Navy eleven, along with you two, no team that the Army ever yet sent out could beat us. But we made a strong fight, at any rate. All of our friends say that."

"I'm glad I didn't do any bragging in advance," Darrin smiled wistfully.

"We were fairly eaten up, Hep."

"Oh, well, we'll hope for better luck next year, with the Navy under some other captain. Maybe you'll be captain next year, Darry."

"I don't want to be," Dave answered, with a shake of his head. "If you couldn't carry our team to victory I don't dare try."

"Then I'll be captain--if I'm asked," promised Dan, with the grin that always lurked close to the surface of his face. While hundreds of midshipmen felt desperately blue on the homeward journey, Dalzell had already nearly forgotten his disappointment.

"You'll never be asked," predicted Hepson good-humoredly. "Danny boy, the trouble with you would be that the fellows would never know when you were in earnest. As captain of the eleven, you might start to give an order, and then nothing but a pun would come forth. You're too full of mischief to win victories."

"I hope that won't be true if I ever have the luck to command a battleship in war time," sighed Dalzell, becoming serious for four or five seconds. Then he bent forward and dropped a cold nickel inside of Joyce's collar. The cold coin coursed down Joyce's spine? causing that tired and discouraged midshipman to jump up with a yell.

"Why does the com. ever allow that five-year-old imp to travel with men?"

grunted Joyce disgustedly, as he sat down again and now realized that the nickel was under him next to the skin.

"Danny boy," groaned Dave, "will you ever grow up? Why do you go on making a pest of yourself?"

"Why, the fellows need some cheering up, don't they?" Dan inquired.

"If you don't look out, Danny boy, you'll rouse them to such a pitch of cheerfulness that they'll raise one of the car windows and drop you outside for sheer joy."

The joy that had been manifest in Annapolis that morning was utterly stilled when the brigade reached the home town once more. True, the band played as a matter of duty, but as the midshipmen marched down Maryland Avenue in brigade formation they pa.s.sed many a heap of f.a.ggots and many a tar-barrel that had been placed there by the boys of the town to kindle into bonfires with which to welcome the returning victors. But to-night the f.a.ggot-piles and the tar-barrels lay unlighted. In the dark this material for bonfires that never were lighted looked like so many spectral reminders of their recent defeat.

It hurt! It always hurts--either the cadets or the midshipmen--to lose the Army-Navy game.

Once back at quarters in Bancroft Hall, it seemed to many of the midshipmen as though it would have been a relief to have to go to study tables to work. Yet, since no work was actually required on this night, none was done.

Midshipmen wandered about in their own rooms and visited. The more they realized the defeat, the bluer they became. From some rooms came sounds of laughter, but it was hollow.

Farley got out a banjo, breaking into a lively darky reel. Yet, somehow, the sound was mournful.

"Please stop that dirge and play something cheerful!" begged the voice of a pa.s.sing midshipman.

"Put the lyre away, Farl," advised Page. "Nothing sounds happy to-night."

"We love to sing and dance. We're happy all the day--ha, ha!" wailed Dan Dalzell. He wasn't so very blue himself, but he was trying to keep in sympathy with the general tone of feeling.

"Well, Hep, you made as good a showing, after all, as could be expected with a dub team," spoke Joyce consolingly, when they met in a corridor.

"It wasn't a dub team," retorted Hepson dismally. "The eleven was all right. The only trouble lay in having a dub for a captain."

It was a relief to hundreds that night when taps sounded at last, and the master switch turned off the lights in midshipmen quarters. At least the young men were healthy and did not waste hours in wooing sleep and forgetfulness.

Then Sunday morning came, and the football season was over until the next year.

"From now on it's going to be like starting life all over again, after a fire," was the way Dan put it that Sunday morning, in an effort to make some of his comrades feel that all was not lost.

Had Dan been able to foresee events which he and Dave must soon encounter, even that grinning midshipman wouldn't have been happy.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MAN WITH A SCOWL ON TAP

"I wish we lived in Annapolis, that we might be here at every hop!"

sighed Belle Meade, as the waltz finished and she and Dave, flushed and happy, sought seats at the side of the ballroom.

They had hardly seated themselves when they were joined by Dan and Laura Bentley.

"I was just saying, Laura," Belle went on, "that it would be splendid if we lived here all through the winter. Then we'd have a chance to come to every hop."

"Wouldn't we want to put in a part of the winter near West Point?" asked Miss Bentley, smiling, though with a wistful look in her eyes.

"Perhaps that would be fairer, to you," Belle agreed.

"You'd soon get tired of the hops," ventured Dave.

"Can one ever weary of dancing?" Belle demanded. "Well, perhaps one might, though never on the small amount that has come to me so far in life. And this Navy orchestra plays so divinely!"

"Our number's next, I believe, ladies," called Midshipman Farley, as he and Page came up, eager for their chances with these two very charming belles of the hop.

"Hang you, Farl!" muttered Dave.