"Then what are you doing fooling around here, governor?" screamed Bert hoa.r.s.ely. "Don't you see that it's your job to hurry to the district attorney as fast as you can go? Use your money, your political influence---"

In his extreme terror young Dodge seemed to forget that he was providing amus.e.m.e.nt for his enemies.

But Mr. Dodge cut in quickly. Advancing a step or two, he brought his uplifted stick down sharply, once, across his son's shoulders.

With a snarl Bert wheeled, crouching as though to spring upon his father.

Prescott and Holmes jumped up, prepared to step in. But the banker was not cowed by the evil look in his son's face.

"Begone, you young villain!" quivered the old man. "Get out of my sight. Never let me see you again. Don't dare to go to what was once your home, or I'll have you thrown out. I disown you!

You are no blood of mine!"

"I guess you forget," sneered Bert cunningly that you are responsible for me, and that you will have to pay my bills."

"Not a penny of them," retorted the banker sternly. "It is you who forget that you reached the age of twenty-one just three days ago. You are your own master, sir---and your own provider! Now, go---and never again let any of your family hear from the scoundrel who has disgraced us all."

Vainly Bert opened his mouth, trying to speak. The words would not come. His father again advancing threateningly, Bert edged towards the door.

"This looks like your fun, as it is your work, d.i.c.k Prescott!"

snarled the wretch. "Wait! If it takes me ten years I'll make you suffer for this!"

Crash! Mr. Dodge had again raised his cane to strike the young man. But Bert had pulled open the door, closing it after him as he fled, and only the plate-gla.s.s panel stopped the fall of the cane.

"I'll pay for the damage done to your door Griffin," promised the banker.

"Don't worry about that, sir," nodded the attorney.

"I feel that we've been here long enough, gentlemen," broke in Cadet Prescott, as he and Greg rose. "Mr. Dodge, I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am that this scene was necessary."

"I feel sure of your sympathy. Prescott, and of yours, too, Holmes.

Thank you both," replied the banker. "You are both fine, manly young fellows. I wish I had been favored with a son like either of you. Now, I have no son!"

d.i.c.k and Greg got away as un.o.btrusively as they could.

Bert Dodge did try to go home to see his Mother, but, by his father's orders, he was put out of the house by two men servants.

Immediately after that Bert vanished from Gridley. At first he tried the effect of writing whining, penitent, begging letters home.

Receiving no replies, Bert finally drifted off into the s.p.a.ce of the wide world.

Later on in the course of these chronicles he may reappear.

Lawyer Griffin consulted with the district attorney, and it was decided not to make perjury cases out of the affair. Fessenden, Bettrick and Deevers, however, were all three warned and the district attorney filed away the lying affidavits, in case a use for them should ever come up.

By degrees the story of Bert Dodge's latest infamy leaked out.

The news, however, did not come through any word spread by either of our young West Pointers.

CHAPTER IX

BACK TO THE GOOD, GRAY LIFE

A Glorious summer it was for the two second cla.s.sman on furlough!

Yet, like all other things, good and otherwise, it had to come to an end.

One morning near the end of August, d.i.c.k and Greg, attended by a numerous concourse of friends, went to the railway station.

The proud parents were there, of course, and so were the parents of Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell, the latter happy in the knowledge that their boys would soon be home for the brief September leave from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.

"Why, you haven't seen Dave since you youngsters all left home, have you, d.i.c.k?" asked Mr. Darrin.

"No, sir. Greg and I hoped to, this last summer, when the Army baseball nine went down to Annapolis and defeated the Navy nine,"

d.i.c.k replied. "But both Greg and I found ourselves so hard pressed in our academic work that we didn't dare go, but remained behind and boned hard at our studies."

"You don't forget the fact that the Army nine did defeat the Navy nine, do you?" laughed Dan's father.

"No, sir; of course not," smiled d.i.c.k. "The Army and Navy teams exist mainly for the purpose of beating each other. I am glad to say that the Army manages to win more than its share of games."

"That's because the West Point boys average a little older than the Annapolis boys," broke in Mrs. Dalzell pleasantly, though warmly. Even she, as the mother of a midshipman, felt her share in the rivalry between the nation's two great service schools.

"You will bring Laura and Belle up to some of the hops this winter, I hope, Mrs. Bentley," d.i.c.k begged.

"Oh, she's pledged to take us to West Point, and to Annapolis,"

broke in Belle Meade, smiling. "You don't think we are going to lose the hops at either Academy while we have friends there, do you?"

"I should hope not," d.i.c.k replied earnestly. Five minutes before train time Leonard Cameron appeared. He greeted the two cadets with great cordiality.

"I couldn't help coming to see you off, Prescott," Cameron found chance to say in an undertone. "Laura is so deeply interested in your success that I, too, am longing to hear every possible good word as to your future career. Laura couldn't be more interested in you if she were truly your sister."

That was the sting that made d.i.c.k's going away bitter. Cameron's manner was so easy and a.s.sured that d.i.c.k saw the crumbling of one of his more than half built castles in Spain.

The train carried the two cadets away. The parents of both young men had seen to it that the cadets went away in a parlor car.

d.i.c.k and Greg, after leaving Gridley behind, swung their chairs around so that, while they looked out of the window, their heads were close together.

"Cameron had a nerve to show up, didn't hey" demanded Greg indignantly.

"I don't know," d.i.c.k replied very quietly. "He tried to be very kind and cordial."

"Shucks!" uttered Greg, disgustedly. "Doesn't he know that Laura Bentley is your girl, and that he's only a b.j. hanger-on there?"

"I'm afraid Laura herself doesn't know that she's my girl," sighed d.i.c.k.

Cadet Holmes swung about so that he could gaze straight into his comrade's face.

"d.i.c.k, didn't you tell her?" demanded Greg aghast.