“The conceited puppy!”

CHAPTER XI

BRAYTON MAKES A BIG APPEAL

For a moment or two Dick stood looking out of his window, across the far-stretching plain that included the parade ground and the athletic field.

In the near distance the football squad was finishing up its practice in the last moments of daylight.  Brayton was captain of the Army eleven, and was a good deal discouraged.

“Queer idea Haynes had!” muttered Dick to himself.

Then he turned back to his desk and to the neglected chapter on “Sound” in natural philosophy.

Dick, however, was not fated to study much.

First of all, back came Greg, opening the door and looking in inquiringly.

“Haynes has gone, I see,” murmured Cadet Holmes.

“Yes.”

“To stay away?”

“I rather think so,” nodded Cadet Prescott, without looking up from the pages of his textbook.

“Then there’ll be some show for a poor, hard-working goat,” muttered Greg, closing the door behind him and falling into his chair.

“The goat,” at West Point, is one who is in the lowest section or two of his class.  Greg was not yet a “goat,” this year, though he lived in dread of becoming one.

Hearing a yell from the plain beyond, however, Holmes went over to the window and looked out.

“Dick, old ramrod,” exclaimed Cadet Holmes wistfully, “I wish we stood well enough to be out on the football grill.”

“So do I,” muttered Dick.  “But what’s the with the goat section overtaking us at double time?”

Greg sighed, then went back to his books.

For fifteen or twenty minutes both young men read on, trying to fasten something of natural philosophy in their minds.

Now there came a quick knock, immediately after which the door was flung open and Brayton marched in.

“See here, you coldfeet,” began the captain of the Army eleven sternly, “what do you two mean by staying in here and boning dry facts?”

“Just to avoid being drowned in goat’s milk,” smiled Dick, turning a page and looking up.

Brayton, regardless of these heroic efforts to study, threw one leg across the corner of the study table.

“You two fellows came out, in the first work of the squad, and did stunts that filled us all with hope,” pursued Brayton severely.  “Then, suddenly, you failed to show up any more.  And all this, despite the fact that we have the poorest eleven the Army has shown in six years.”

“Only men well up in their academic work are allowed to play on the eleven, replied Dick.

“You fellows are well enough up to make the team.”

“But we’re nervous about our studies,” rejoined Prescott.