Dick solemnly promised, whereat Dr. Bentley smiled.
"That's all nonsense, Dick," laughed Laura's father. "I know, in my own heart, that you're going to be as good a son to mother and me as you have been to your own parents. God bless you both!"
A new lot of High School boys Dick and Greg found in Gridley, but the new crop seemed to be fully as promising as any that Dick and Greg could remember in their own old High School days when Dick & Co. had flourished.
A fortnight, altogether, Dick and Greg enjoyed in the good old home town, hallowed to them by so many memories.
Then one morning each received a bulky official envelope bearing the imprint of the War Department at Washington.
How their eyes glistened, then moistened, as each young West Point grad. drew out of the envelope the parchment on which was written his commission as a second lieutenant of United States infantry.
More, their request had been granted. They had been assigned to the same regiment—-the forty-fourth.
Their instructions called for them to start within forty-eight hours, and to wire acknowledgment of orders to Washington.
The Forty-fourth United States Infantry was at that time in the far
West, in a country that at times teemed with adventure for Uncle
Sam's soldiers.
Here we must take leave of Lieutenant Dick Prescott and of Lieutenant Greg Holmes, United States Army, for their cadet days are over and gone.