Holmes spoke seriously, and with evident truth.  Dick leaned back, staring curiously at his chum, though he did not ask the latest girl’s name.

“At least, I was engaged, at latest accounts,” Greg went on, after a few moments.  “By the time I reach West Point, just as likely as not, I’ll get a letter asking me to consider the matter as past history only.”

“Greg, Greg!” muttered Prescott, shaking his head gravely.  “I’m afraid you’re not very constant.

“I?” retorted Cadet Holmes indignantly.  “Dick, you’re harboring the wrong idea.  It’s the girls who are not constant.  Though they were all nice little bits of femininity,” Greg added reminiscently in a tone of regret.

Late in the afternoon the chums arrived in New York.  After putting up at a hotel they had time for dinner and a stroll.

“Somehow, I don’t feel very sporty tonight,” sighed Cadet Holmes, as they waited, at table, for the evening meal to be served.  “Yet, in a week, I suppose I’ll be kicking myself.  For tomorrow we’re due to get back into our gray habits and re-enter the military convent life up the river.”

After a late supper and a short night’s rest, the two young men found themselves, the morning following, on a steamboat bound up the Hudson River.

“After all these weeks of good times,” muttered Greg, “it doesn’t seem quite real.”

“It will, in a couple of hours,” predicted Prescott, smiling.  “And, now that home is so far behind, I’m really delighted to think that I’ll soon be back in gray old barracks, donning the same old gray uniform.”

“Oh, it will be all right.  There are a lot of fellows that I’m eager to see” Greg admitted.

“Is the---er---er-----”

“Out with it!”

“Is Miss Number Three likely to be at the Point when we get there?”

“I don’t know,” Holmes admitted.  “I haven’t heard from her in four days.  I hope she’ll be there.”

All in due time the two cadets worked their way forward on the boat.  Now they encountered nearly a dozen other members of their class, all returning.  Yet none of the dozen were among their warmest friends in class life.

“Look, fellows!” cried Dick at last.  “There’s just a glimpse of some of the high spots of West Point through the trees!”

It was all well enough for the cadets to claim that the life at West Point was a fearfully hard and dull grind, and that they were little better than cadet slaves.  As they picked out, one after another, familiar glimpses of West Point, these young men became mostly silent, though their eyes gleamed eagerly.  They loved the good old gray academy!  They rejoiced to find themselves so near, and going back!

Then at last the boat touched at the pier.  Some moments before the gangplank was run aboard from the wharf everyone of the more than dozen cadets had already leaped ashore.

“Whoop!” yelled Greg, tossing his hat in the air.