"Just wondering," admitted Prescott, in a low voice, "whether I ever contracted any symptoms of football-player's heart."
"Bosh!" muttered Greg. "I never heard of any such disease."
"I never did either," Dick fidgeted. "But in the hour I've been at West Point I've concluded that people here know a heap of things that aren't even guessed at in the outside world."
"O-o-o-h! Say! Look!" murmured Greg in deep awe and admiring wonder. "They must be cadets!"
Eight young men in gray, marshaled by a section marcher, went swinging up the road with a marching rhythm so perfect that it was like music.
Each of these young men was clad in flawless gray, with black stripes and facings. Each young man wore his cadet fatigue cap at an exact angle. The long, caped gray overcoats looked as though they had been melted to the forms of their wearers.
No wonder Greg Holmes gave that involuntary gasp. He was having his first view of a small squad of real cadets.
Some of the candidates on the other sidewalk so far forgot themselves as to halt and all but stare at the natty young marching men opposite.
Then, all in an instant, the section marcher and his section had gone by.
"Don't anyone halt, please," cautioned the soldier orderly. "Keep your places in the line, young gentlemen, and keep moving right along."