How could Prescott possibly know that his commission in the Army was not yet sure?
That same sandy-bearded, bespectacled and stoop-shouldered ex-cadet
Jordan was even now eyeing Dick from a little distance.
"Humph! Prescott feels mighty big at this moment!" growled the young scoundrel. "I wonder how he'll be feeling at midnight, down in cadet hospital, when the surgeons tell him he has no chance of ever being a sound man again? Confound him! I could almost find it in my heart to kill the fellow, instead of merely maiming him. But maiming will be the keener revenge. All his life hereafter Prescott will be thinking what might have been if he hadn't met me this night! Shall I leap on him when he's coming back from the hotel, after the graduation ball? No; for he'd have Holmes with him then. I'll send in word and call him out from the ball, with a message that an old schoolmate wants to see him on something most urgent. I'll have Prescott to myself, and all I need is a few seconds. I'm half as powerful again as Prescott is!"
Jordan was not at all lacking in a certain type of ferocious brute courage. As he had just boasted to himself, he was powerful enough to be able to overpower Dick in a hand-to-hand conflict, yet the scoundrel meant to attack Prescott unawares, without giving the latter a chance to defend himself.
Then, too, the sight of Laura, looking sweeter and more beautiful than she had ever appeared in her life, goaded Jordan on to greater fury.
"That is the very girl I had planned to cut Prescott out with, after he had been kicked from the service, and I was still in the uniform. But it fell out the other way about," gritted Jordan. "Prescott wears the uniform, and I've been dishonorably dropped from the rolls! Prescott, I've a double score to settle with you to-night!"
But of all this, of course, Prescott was wholly unaware.
"How much time have we to spare?" queried Dick, then glancing
at his watch. "Ten minutes. Laura, will you stroll around the
Hall with me and look down over the cliff at the noble old Hudson!
This will be one of my last glimpses as a cadet."
Laura assented. Greg was about to follow, when Belle Meade drew him back.
"Take me inside," she urged. "I am eager to see the decorations."