ree sat on their catch.

"Doug," however, felt something hard. Leaping up, he made a quick
search, then drew from Jordan's hip pocket a length of lead pipe
wrapped in red flannel.

"Ye gods of war," gasped Douglass, "what sort of weapon is this
for a former gentleman to carry?"

"Let me up," pleaded Jordan, "and I'll make a quick hike!"

"Don't you let him up, fellows," warned Douglass. "Now, whom
did Jordan seek with an implement like this? There could be but
one of our men---Prescott."

"Have you anything to say, Jordan?" demanded Atterbury.

"Not a blessed word," growled Jordan, no longer attempting to
disguise his voice.

"Then we have," returned "Doug."

"But you two fellows hold him until I come back."

Douglass ran over to the cliff, then, with a mighty throw, hurled
the bar of lead out into the Hudson, far below. Then he darted
back.

"Now, fellows," muttered Douglass in a low voice, "I'd like mighty
well to turn this scoundrel over. But we don't want to put such
a foul besmirchment on the class name, if we can avoid it, the
night before graduation. Jordan, if we let you go, will you hike,
and never stop hiking until you're miles and miles away from West
Point?"

"Yes; on my honor," protested the other eagerly.

"On your---bosh!" retorted "Doug" impatiently. "Don't spring such
strange oaths on us, fellow. Let him."

"Now, Jordan, start moving, and keep it up!" Then the trio, after
watching the rascal out of sight, went inside, and Douglass, at
the first opportunity, warned Dick of what had happened outside in
the summer darkness.

CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

The graduating exercises at West Point had finished. The Secretary
of War, in the presence of the superintendent, the commandant
and the members of the faculty of the United States Military Academy,
flanked by the Board of Visitors, had handed his diploma to the
last man, the cadet at the foot of the graduating class, Mr. Atterbury.

Dick had graduated as number thirty-four; Greg as thirty-seven.
Either might have chosen the cavalry, or possibly the artillery
arm of the service, but both had already expressed a preference
for the infantry arm.

"The 'doughboys' (infantry) are always the fellows who see the
hardest of the fighting in war time," was the way Dick put it.

Now the superintendent made a few closing remarks. These finished,
the band blared out with a triumphal march, to the first notes
of which the firs