Most of the afternoon the returned furlough men spent in their new rooms. During that afternoon Anstey pounced in upon them. The Virginian said little, as usual, but the length and fervor of the handclasp that he gave Dick and Greg was enough.
With evening came the color-line entertainment. Dick and Anstey walked on the outskirts of the throng of visitors.
Cadet Holmes, having discovered that the especial girl to whom he was at present betrothed was not at West Point, played the casual gallant for a fair cousin of Second Classman McDermott.
The night went out in a blaze of color, illumination and fireworks just before taps. In the morning the cadet battalion marched back into barracks, and on the morning after that the daily grind began in the grim old academic building.
Cadets Prescott and Holmes were thus fairly started on their third year at West Point. There was a tremendous grind ahead of them, the very grind was becoming vastly easier, two years of the hard life at West Point taught them how to study.
CHAPTER X
THE SCHEME OF THE TURNBACK
"I must be getting back to my room," murmured Anstey. "I haven't had a demerit so far this year, and I don't want to begin."
"If you must go, all right," replied Dick, though he added, with undoubted heartiness:
"Whether in or out of proper hours, Anstey, your visits are always too short."