“Oh, him. Why he’s been assigned here from the regular army, I heard, to give special instruction. Why, do you know him?”
“Yes, and I—I wish I didn’t,” murmured Tom. He felt a vague sense of foreboding. What would the presence of Captain Hawkesbury mean to our hero at West Point, when Tom had been successful over the officer’s favorite nephew? Tom was apprehensive.
CHAPTER X
ANTICIPATIONS
“This certainly isn’t any cinch!”
“I should say not! It’s the hardest grind I was ever up against!”
“Well, you didn’t expect to live in a perpetual camp, with nothing to do; did you?”
It was Sam Leland who gave utterance to the first remark, and Harry Houston who spoke the second, with a doleful shake of his head. And it was Tom Taylor who propounded the question.
The three new cadets, as our three friends were officially designated, though in reality they were called plebes, and would be for the next year to come, were in their barrack room, having just come in from a long and tiresome drill. They were taking what ease they could before they would again be called upon to take up some other of their new military duties.
“Camp! I should say it wasn’t like camp!” exclaimed Sam. Shortly before the three chums had been telling one another some of their experiences before they came to West Point, and all had agreed that the fun they had had while camping in the summer was best of all.
“Oh well, we’ll have a taste of camp life here,” observed Harry, as he looked around the room, to make sure it was in perfect order against the unexpected inspection of some “tac.”