"Oh, it's all a fact, straight and right enough," Greg assured them happily.
Then and there the four chums executed a war dance. It seemed too wonderful to believe.
"But isn't Gridley the whole show?" demanded Dave presently.
"Four cadetships in the same year to one little city!"
"Well, we had to win 'em from other comers," retorted Greg. "And none of us are out of the woods yet. We've got to pass at West Point and at Annapolis.
"This is great!" quivered young Prescott. "But wouldn't it be grand if only Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton had gotten in line, too, and gone along into the service with us? Then all of the old Dick & Co. would have been enrolled under the battle flag."
"But you know what Tom told us," put in Darrin. "He said he wouldn't live at West Point, and he wouldn't be caught dead at Annapolis. Tom is all for becoming a great civil engineer—-a builder of railroads and all that sort of thing."
"Well, Harry Hazelton is just as bad," said Greg. "He's all for doing engineer stunts in the wilderness, too."
"Here they come now," announced Dan Dalzell.
Tom and Harry were heartily glad, of course, to hear of the luck that had befallen Greg and Dan.
"We were just wishing that you two had fallen into the same kind of luck, and that you were going into uniform with us," declared Dick.