"Oh, then you're not going to have supper at cadet mess?" asked Greg in a tone of deep disappointment.

"No," answered Dan Dalzell. "It would get us through too late.

We dine in New York on arrival."

"Hurry up and get dressed," d.i.c.k urged. Then, turning to the coach, he inquired:

"May we keep Darrin and Dalzell with us, sir, until your train leaves?"

"No reason on earth why you shouldn't," nodded the Navy coach.

So Dave and Dan were dressed in a trice, it seemed, though with the care that a cadet or midshipman must always display in the set of his immaculate uniform.

d.i.c.k seized Dave by the elbow, marching him forth, while Greg piloted Dan.

"Great game for you-----" began Dan, as soon as the quartette of old chums were outside.

"Send all that kind of talk by the baggage train," ordered Cadet Holmes. "What we want to talk about are the dear old personal affairs."

"You youngsters are through here, after not so many more days, aren't you?" began Darrin.

"Yes; and so are you, down at Annapolis," replied Prescott.

"Not quite," rejoined Dave gravely. "There's this difference.

In a few days you'll be through here, and will proceed to your homes. Then, within the next few days, you'll both receive your commissions as second lieutenants in the Army, and will be ordered to your regiments. You're officers for all time to come! We of the first cla.s.s at Annapolis will receive our diplomas, surely.

But what beyond that? While you become officers at once, we have to start on the two years' cruise, and we're still midshipmen.

After two years at sea, we have to come back and take another exam. If we pa.s.s that one, then we'll be ensigns---officers at last. But if we fail in the exam, two years hence then we're dropped from the service. After we've gone through our whole course at Annapolis we still have to guess, for two years, whether we're going to be reckoned smart enough to be ent.i.tled to serve the United States as officers. I can't feel, d.i.c.k, that we of Annapolis, get a square deal."

"It doesn't sound like it," Prescott, after a moment, admitted.

"Still, you can do nothing about it. And you knew the game when you went to Annapolis."

"Yes, I knew all this four years ago," Darrin admitted. "Still, the four years haven't made the deal look any more fair than it did four years ago. However, d.i.c.k, hang all kickers and sea-lawyers!

Isn't it grand, anyway, to feel that you're in your country's uniform, and that all your active life is to be spent under the good old flag---always working for it, fighting for it if need be!"

"Then you still love the service?" asked d.i.c.k, turning glowing eyes upon his Annapolis chum.

"Love it?" cried Dave. "The word isn't strong enough!"

"Are you engaged, old fellow?" asked Greg of Dan Dalzell.

"Kind of half way," grinned Dan. "That is, I'm willing, but the girl can't seem to make up her mind. And you?"

"I've been engaged nine times in all," sighed Greg. Yet each and every one of the girls soon felt impelled to ask me to call it off."

"Any show just at present?" persisted Dalzell.

"Why, strange to say," laughed Greg, "I'm fancy free at the present moment."

"How did the old affair ever come out between d.i.c.k and Laura Bentley?"

asked Dan curiously.

"Why, the strange part of it is, I don't believe there ever has been any formal affair between d.i.c.k and Laura," Greg went on. "That is, no real understanding between them. And now-----"

"Yes?" urged Dan.

"A merchant over in Gridley, a rather decent chap, too, has been making up to Laura pretty briskly, I hear by way of home news,"

Greg continued.

"Does the yardstick general win out?" demanded Dan.

"From all the news, I'm half afraid he does."

"How does d.i.c.k take that?" Dan was eager to know.

"I can't tell you," Greg responded solemnly, "for I have never ventured on that topic with old ramrod. But if he loses out with Laura, I feel it in my bones that he'll take it mighty hard."

"Poor old d.i.c.k!" sighed Dan, loyal to the old days. "Somehow, I can't quite get it through my head that it's at all right for anyone to withhold from d.i.c.k Prescott anything he really wants."

Greg sighed too.

"Any idea what arm of the service you're going to choose?" asked Dan presently.

"I believe I'll do better to wait and see what my cla.s.s standing is at graduation," laughed Greg. "That is the thing that settles how much choice I'm to have in the matter of arm of the service."

"Any liking for heavy artillery?" asked Dan.

"Not a whit. Cavalry or infantry for mine."

"Not the engineers?"

"Only the honor men of the cla.s.s can get into the engineers,"

grunted Greg. "Neither d.i.c.k nor I stand any show to be honor men. We feel lucky enough to get through the course and graduate at all."

d.i.c.k and Dave, too, were talking earnestly about the future, though now and then a word was dropped about the good old past, as described in the _High School Boys' Series_.

Ten minutes before the train time two chums in Army gray and two in Navy blue reached the platform of the railway station. The other middies were there ahead of them. In the time that was left d.i.c.k and Greg were hastily introduced to the other middies.

A few jolly words there were, but the other members of the Army nine and still other cadets were on hand, and so the talk was general.

Amid noisy, heartfelt cheering the middy delegation climbed aboard the incoming train. Amid more cheers their train bore them away and then some sixty West Point cadets climbed the long, steep road, next hastening on to be in time for supper formation.

For the members of the first cla.s.s West Point athletics had now become a matter of history only!

CHAPTER XXI

A CLOUD ON d.i.c.k'S HORIZON