“No,” replied Dalzell, with a solemn shake of his head.  “I am the joke, and it’s on Gridley for being my native town.”

“I’m glad to be back—–­when I get there,” announced Hazy.  “I shall be glad, even if for nothing more than the chance to rest my feet.”

“Nonsense!” Dick retorted.  “You’ll be out on Main Street, to-night, ready to tramp miles and miles, if anything amusing turns up.”

At the first shade by the roadside Dick &.  Co. halted for fifteen minutes to rest.

“Now, each one of you do a little silent thinking,” Prescott urged.

“Give us the topic, then,” proposed Reade.

“Fellows,” Dick went on, mounting a stump and thrusting one hand inside his flannel shirt, in imitation of the pose of an orator, “the next year will be an eventful one for all of us.  In that time we shall wind up our courses at the Gridley High School.  From the day that we set forth from Gridley High School we shall be actively at work creating our careers.  We are destined to become great men, everyone of us!”

“Tell that to the Senate!” mocked Tom Reade.

“Well, then,” Dick went on, accepting the doubt of their future greatness, “we shall, at least, if we are worth our salt, become useful men in the world, and I don’t know but that is very close to being great.  For the man who isn’t useful in the world has no excuse for living.  Now, in a little more than another hour, we shall be treading the pavements of good old Gridley.  Let us do it with a sense of triumph.”

“Triumph?” quizzed Tom soberly.  “What about?”

“The sense of triumph,” Dick retorted, “will arise from the fact that this is to be the last and biggest year in which we are to give ourselves the final preparation for becoming either great or useful men.  I’m not going to say any more on this subject.  Perhaps you fellows think I’ve been talking nonsense on purpose.  I haven’t.  Neither have I tried to preach to you, for preaching is out of my line.  But, fellows, I hope you all feel, as solemnly as I do myself, just what this next year must mean to us in work, in study—–­in a word, in achievement.  It won’t do any of us any harm, once in a while to feel solemn, for five seconds at a time, over what we are going to do this year to assure our futures.”

For once Tom Reade didn’t have a jest ready.  For once Dalzell forgot to grin.

The march was taken up again.  The next halt was made in Gridley, thus ending their long training hike, the boys going to their respective homes.

“Just give three silent cheers, and we won’t startle anyone,” Tom proposed.

“We went out on the trip to harden ourselves,” murmured Dave, “and I must admit that we have all done it.”

That evening Dick and Harry Hazelton drove the horse and wagon over to Tottenville, where the camp wagon was returned to its owner, Mr. Newbegin Titmouse.

“You young men have worn this wagon quite:  a bit,” whined Mr. Titmouse, after he had painstakingly inspected the wagon by the light of a lantern.