hat I have made the invitation as explicit as I've meant
to. But you'll come, won't you, Laura? It would be a poor graduation
for me, without your face in the throng, for the others will be
strangers to me. Won't you please write promptly and set my mind
at ease on this vital point?"

In three days Laura's answer came. Unless unavoidably prevented
she would be on hand during a part of graduation week.

"And I certainly want to attend the graduation hop," Laura added,
"for it will probably be the only one that I shall ever have a
chance to attend."

"Now, what does she mean by that last statement?" pondered Dick,
finding new cause for worry. "Does she mean that she expects
to cut the Army after this year? Is she really planning to marry
that fellow Cameron? Gracious, how time has flown during these
hurried years at West Point! For two years past Laura has been
fully old enough to wed! What a folly she'd commit in waiting
all these years for backward me to get ready to open my lips!
Yes; I guess it's going to be Cameron."

Cadet Prescott compressed his lips grimly, but he was soldier
enough to be game and face the music.

"I've got to be patient a few weeks more, and take the chances,"
Dick told himself, as he scurried away to daily ball practice.
"With a rival in the field I wouldn't dare, anyway, to trust
my fate to a pleading set down on paper. But I'll send Laura
a letter once a week now, anyway. She may guess from that, as
graduation approaches, that I am sending my thoughts more and
more in her direction."

With the bravery of which he was so capable, Dick ceased his worry
about his sweetheart as much as he could, and threw his leisure
hours heartily into his work in the ball squad.

It will not be possible to describe the games of the season in
detail. There were twenty scheduled games in all, though three
were called off on account of rain. The Army won twelve out of
sixteen games played with college teams. Dick and Greg were the
battery in the heaviest nine of the winning games, and in one
of the games lost.

Prescott and Holmes had no difficulty in putting up a game that
has sent them down in history as being the best Army battery to
that date.

But the Navy, that year, had an exceptionally fine team, too,
with Dave Darrin and Dalzell for its star battery.

"This is the game we've got to win, fellows," called out Durville
earnestly, two days before the Annapolis nine was due at West