“Well, I didn’t know it until I received this letter,” said the sergeant, helping himself to a chair and throwing his cap on Bert’s bed. “I spoke of you in a letter I wrote home a short time ago, and am surprised to learn that your father and mine used to be room-mates and chums when they belonged to this academy. Let’s shake.”
Don took the sergeant’s proffered hand, and this was the beginning of another friendship that has never been broken. The sergeant was just the kind of associate that Don needed. He was a faithful soldier, a close student, a favorite with both teachers and scholars, and his example and influence did wonders for Don Gordon. It is true that during his first year at the academy he had been rather restive under the strict discipline to which he was subjected. He had even run the guard—if he hadn’t he would not have known as much as he did about Cony Ryan’s pancakes and maple syrup—and he had paid for his fun by walking extras and being gated; but that was all over now, and he was one of the last boys in school who would have been suspected of any violation of the rules.
Egan introduced his new friend to the fellows in the first class, and first-class fellows Don found them to be. Some of them were fond of shooting and fishing, knew a good dog and gun when they saw them, and could tell hunting stories without number. Others among them—and they were Southern boys, like Don—thought more of their horses than they did of almost anything else. They were at home in the saddle, and delighted to talk of the fine times they had enjoyed while riding to the hounds. Courtland Hopkins, who was the Falstaff of the academy, always grew enthusiastic when the subject of fox-hunting was introduced.
“Ah! Gordon,” he said one day, “that is the sport par excellence. Come down into Maryland with me next vacation, and I’ll show you some fun. A lot of the fellows have been promising to go for a long time, but that’s all it has amounted to.”
“I’d like to see you in the saddle, Hop,” said Egan, taking his friend by the arm and turning him around so that he could give him a good looking over. “You’ve almost too much avoirdupois for a rider, according to my way of thinking. In other words, you’re a great deal too fat.”
“Just give me a good horse, and see if I can’t take a ten-rail fence as cleverly as anybody,” returned Hopkins, quickly. “I am good for a plate of soup at the International if there is a colt in Bridgeport that can throw me.”
“If you will all go home with me, I will give you some of the best duck-shooting you ever saw,” said Don.
“Yes; but that would require a scatter-gun, and that is something I never did like,” said Walter Curtis. “If you want to see fun, combined with skill, take a Thanksgiving dinner with me, and watch the members of our club break glass balls with rifles.”
These words were spoken carelessly, but they were not forgotten. If they had been, this series of books would never have been written.