"Just after recall."
"Good," murmured Darrin. "You two come for me, and I'll be ready. And I thank both of you fellows for taking up the matter for me."
"We'll be mighty glad to be there, Darry," grinned Farley, "for we look to see you finish off that first classman."
"Maybe," smiled Dave quietly. "I'll do all I can, anyway."
"And to think," almost moaned Dan Dalzell, "that you're to be in a scrap, David, little giant, and I'm not to be there to see!"
"There'll be other fights, I'm afraid," sighed Darry. "I seem destined to displease quite a few of the fellows here at Annapolis."
Dan tried to study, that night, after Darrin had left the room in the company of his seconds. Certainly Dan, in the light of his promise made to the Board that morning, had need to study. Yet he found it woefully hard to settle his mind on mathematics while Dave was fighting the fight of his Naval Academy career.
"Oh, well," muttered Dan, picking up a pencil for the third time, "Dave and I each have our own styles of fights, just now. Here goes for a knockout blow at math!"
CHAPTER XVII
LOSING THE TIME-KEEPER'S COUNT
Conners and Brayton were Treadwell's seconds.