FATE SERVES DICK HER MEANEST TRICK
The furloughed second class returned, the encampment ended and the corps marched back into cadet barracks.
The new academic year had begun, with new text-books, new studies, new intellectual torments for the hundreds of ambitious young soldiers at the United States Military Academy.
By this time both Dick and Greg had acquired the habits of study so thoroughly that neither any longer feared for his standing or markings.
To Prescott there was one big comfort about being back in the old, gray cadet barracks.
The silence put upon Dick was not now quite as much in evidence. With long study hours, Prescott had not so much need to meet his classmates.
In the section rooms nothing in the deportment of the other cadets could emphasize the silence.
It was only in the authorized visiting hours that Prescott noted the change keenly.
Of course, according to the traditions of the Military Academy, Anstey and all the other loyal friends who ached to call were barred from so doing.
While taps sounds at ten o'clock, and members of the three lower classes must be in bed, with lights out, at the first sound of taps, first classmen are privileged, whenever they wish, to run a light until eleven at night, provided the extra time be spent in study.