As the strains died out there was an impressive pause. Then, in lighter vein, the band rollicked out with the old, familiar, "Good Night Ladies," and, laughing merrily, the visitors departed, their cadet friends going with them only as far as camp limits.
Out on the plains beyond the visitors again halted for a brief instant.
In front of the guard tent a drummer sounded "taps"—three strokes on the drum. All but the authorized lights in guard tent and O.C.'s tent were extinguished.
The summer encampment was over.
"Oh, dear!" sighed many a fair visitor as she returned to a sheltering roof. "The summer's fun is over. To-morrow these splendid young men will be back in barracks, grilling and boning for their very lives!"
CHAPTER XVII
MR. DODGE GOES CANVASSING
Yes, the good old summer time was over. Bending over study tables in cadet barracks the young men pored over books and papers of their own making.
The first few days seemed fearfully hard. To the young men who had been for weeks away from their books it seemed for a while all but impossible to pick up the threads of study in a way that would anything like satisfy the Army officers who acted as their relentless instructors.
"Relentless?" To the average boy in grammar or high school it does not seem like a hardship to be required to make a percentage of at least sixty-six and two-thirds per cent. in all studies. In the public schools it seems rather easy to reach that kind of an average.