he lane
that leads to the junk heap. Get out of that road, Danny!"

"What are you going to do in life yourself?" challenged Danny Grin.

"I'm going to West Point if there's any possible chance of my
winning the nomination from our home district. There's a vacancy
to be competed for next spring."

"Some smarter boy may win it away from you," Danny Grin retorted.

"He'll have to hustle, then," Dick rejoined, his eyes flashing.

"But suppose you do lose the nomination and can't go to West
Point---what will you do then?"

"I have plans, in case I can't get to West Point," Prescott answered
quietly. "However, as yet I won't admit the defeat of my West
Point ambition."

"I'd try for West Point myself, if it weren't for Dick being in
the way," Greg declared. "But I never could get past Dick in
an exam."

"If you want it, come on and try," begged Dick. "Our Congressman
gives the nomination to the boy in the district who can stand
up best under an exam. Go in and try for it, Greg! Work like
a horse when high school opens. You might get it."

"And take it away from you?" blurted Holmes.

"If you can get it from me, you ought to do it, Holmesy. The
best men are needed in every walk of life. I'll promise, in
advance, not to be 'sore' if you can win it away from me."

"Yes! I'd try all winter," scoffed Greg, "and then in the end
some sad-eyed fellow from a back-country village would bob up
and win it away from us both."

"Let the sad-eyed fellow have it, if he is the better man," Dick
agreed heartily. "But fear of defeat isn't going to hold me back.
Don't let it stop you, either, Greg!"

"It's going to be Annapolis for mine---the United States Naval
Academy and a commission in the United States Navy!" Darry declared,
his eyes snapping.

"I'd rather like that, too," Danny Grin declared.

"Then go after it," urged Dick Prescott. "Get some real plan
in your mind of what you're going to do in life, and then follow
that plan, night and day, until you either win or drop from exhaustion."

"Wouldn't I be a funny-looking lamb in a midshipman's uniform?"
queried Dalzell blinking fast.

"No funnier looking than any of the rest of us," Dick retorted.
"Now, Tom isn't talking much, but we all know what he's going
to do, for he has already been working at it. He has been studying
surveying, for he means to make a great civil engineer of himself
one of these days."

"And I'm going into the game with him," de