The old-time chums had eaten their fill of ice cream some time before, but they still sat about the table, chatting gayly.

“There’s one thing you never really told us about in your letters,” muttered Tom.  “You wrote us that Bert Dodge had resigned from the Military Academy, but you didn’t tell us why.  Now, that fellow, Dodge, never gave up anything good that he didn’t have to give up.  Was he kicked out of the Academy?”

“That story isn’t known in Gridley,” replied Prescott, lowering his voice.  “Dodge tells people that he left because he didn’t like the crowd or the life there.  We haven’t changed the story any since our return.  We’ll tell you fellows, for we never used to have any secrets from you in the old days.  But you mustn’t pass the yarn around.”

“No,” grimaced Greg.  “You mustn’t tell the story around.  Dodge has threatened to have us imprisoned for life, for criminal libel, if we allow his secret to reach profane ears.”

“Just why did Dodge leave West Point?” asked Reade.

“He was invited to,” replied Prescott, “by a class committee on honor.”

“I thought it was something like that,” grunted Reade.

Then, in low tones that could not be overheard by other patrons of the ice cream place, Dick Prescott told the story of Dodge’s cribbing at West Point, and of the way that Bert nearly succeeded in palming his guilt off on to Prescott.

“I’d believe every word of that yarn, even if a plumb stranger told it to me,” declared Hazelton.  “It has all the earmarks of truth.  It’s a complete story of just what Bert Dodge would do in one form or another, in any walk of life.”

“But you fellows won’t repeat insisted Dick.

“And thereby have us consigned to prison cells for the balance of our unworthy lives?” mocked Greg.

“You know us better than to think that we’d blab,” retorted Tom half indignantly.

“You had a right to know, though,” Prescott went on.

“Dick & Co. always were a close corporation,” laughed Hazelton.  “And I hope the time will never come when we can’t tell our secrets to each other.”

“I am sorry you fellows have so short a leave,” murmured Dick.

“Why, What would you want us to do!” queried Tom.

“Greg and I would be tickled to death if you were going to be here all summer,” Dick answered.  “In the first place, just for the sake of having your company.  In the next place, we’d think it great if you could go back to West Point with us when our furlough is over.  If you could be there, over a Saturday and a Sunday, we’d have time to show you a lot about the life there.  You’d feel acquainted from the start, for lots of the fellows of our class have heard about you.  You’d get a great reception.”

“Gridley must seem dull, after your life in the West,” mused Cadet Holmes.

“Oh, I don’t believe there’s any place where you get excitement all the time,” declared Tom.  “And there’s no place so dull that it doesn’t have a little excitement once in a while.”