“Well, what are we going to the high school for?” questioned Dick Prescott.

“I’m going because the folks send me,” Dan declared.  “Can’t help myself.”

“Don’t you want to get anywhere in life?”

“I suppose I do,” Dalzell assented half dubiously.

“Danny boy, I’m ashamed of you,” Dick exclaimed, though his eyes were smiling.  “Are you content, Dan, to grow up and use your fine muscles in performing the duties of a day laborer?”

“Not exactly,” Dan answered.

“You’d rather be president of a big railroad company?”

“Yes, if I had to choose between the two jobs.”

“Then perhaps you can get a glimmering of why you’re in high school,” Dick went on.  “When you compare the railway president and the laborer, the difference between them lies a good deal in the difference in their natural abilities.  Yet a lot depends, too, upon the difference in their training.  You don’t find many college graduates wielding the pick and shovel for a living, nor many high school graduates doing so, either.  By the way, Dan, what are you going to do in life?”

Dalzell shook his head.

“Then within the next year you had better go after the problem and make your decision hard and fast.  Fasten your gaze on something in life that you want, and then don’t stop traveling until you get it, and it’s all yours!  A boy of seventeen, without an idea of what he intends to do in life has already turned down the 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.”