n to get through with the next stage in
their awe-filled day.

"There are some marching down with us who won't be marching
with us to the next place, I am afraid," whispered Holmes.

"I imagine so," whispered Dick, with a nod.

"Say," murmured Greg, his cheek suddenly blanching, "just how
much chest expansion do the surgeons demand in the case of a
fellow standing five-seven in his stocking feet?"

There was a note almost of panic in Greg's voice.

"Cheer up, Greg!" urged Dick, whose own lace was again flushing.
"You've got chest expansion enough for a heavy-weight prize
fighter."

"You must have the same, then. Is that so?" demanded Holmes.
"What makes your face so red?"

"Just wondering," admitted Prescott, in a low voice, "whether I
ever contracted any symptoms of football-player's heart."

"Bosh!" muttered Greg. "I never heard of any such disease."

"I never did either," Dick fidgeted. "But in the hour I've been at
West Point I've concluded that people here know a heap of things
that aren't even guessed at in the outside world."

"O-o-o-h! Say! Look!" murmured Greg in deep awe and admiring
wonder. "They must be cadets!"

Eight young men in gray, marshaled by a section marcher, went
swinging up the road with a marching rhythm so perfect that it
was like music.

Each of these young men was clad in flawless gray, with black
stripes and facings. Each young man wore his cadet fatigue cap at
an exact angle. The long, caped gray overcoats looked as though
they had been melted to the forms of their wearers.

No wonder Greg Holmes gave that involuntary gasp. He was
having his first view of a small squad of real cadets.

Some of the candidates on the other sidewalk so far forgot
themselves as to halt and all but stare at the natty young marching
men opposite.

Then, all in an instant, the section marcher and his section had
gone by.

"Don't anyone halt, please," cautioned the soldier orderly. "Keep
your places in the line, young gentlemen, and keep moving right
along."

So they reached the cadet hospital. The orderly marched them into
a spacious, almost bare room on the ground floor and announced:

"I will report to the surgeon. Young gentlemen, wait until you are
called."

"I wish I could carry myself and step the way that fellow does,"
whispered Dick, his admiring gaze following the retreating
orderly.

"Well, that's what we've come here to learn," replied Greg. "That
is, if we get by the docto