“Prescott must be chuckling,” jeered Durville.

“He’s doing nothing of the sort, suh!” flared Anstey.  “And I’m prepared to maintain my position.”

CHAPTER XII

READY TO BREAK THE CAMEL’S BACK

From Thanksgiving to Christmas the time seemed to fly all too fast for most of the young men of the corps of cadets.

Dick Prescott, however, had never known time to drag so fearfully.  Cut off from association with any but Greg, Dick had much, very much time on his hands.

Full of a dogged purpose to stick to his word given to Lieutenant Denton, Prescott used nearly all of his waking time in study when he was not at recitation.  In his classes he soared.  In engineering and law, the studies of this term which called for the most exacting thought, Prescott showed unusual signs of “maxing,” or getting among the highest marks.  Yet, after all this was done, so much leisure did the lonely Dick have that he found time to coach Greg and pull him along over the hard parts.

“Look at that fellow recite!  Look where he stands in the sections!” growled Durville in bewilderment to Jordan.

“It looks as if the sneak meant to stick,” uttered Jordan incredulously.

“Yet of course he knows he can’t.  If it were only for West Point he might stick, but the Army, through his lifetime, would be just as bad for him.”

It had been a general notion that Prescott, either too proud or too stubborn to allow himself to be forced out, would wait and “fess out cold” at the January semi-annuals.  Thus he would be dropped for deficiency, and would not have to admit to anyone that he had allowed himself to be driven from the Military Academy by the “silence” that had been extended to him.

Jordan knew better than to go near the fiery young Anstey, so he managed to induce Durville to speak to the Virginian as to Prescott’s plans.

“I don’t know Mr. Prescott’s intentions, suh,” replied Anstey with perfect truth and a good deal of dignity.  “I am bound, suh, to follow the class’s action, suh, much as I disapprove of it.  So I have had no word with Mr. Prescott later than you have.”

“But you know the fellow’s roommate, Mr. Holmes,” suggested Durville.

“I am under the impression that you do, too, suh,” replied Anstey significantly, yet without infusing offence into his even tones.

It was no use.  The first class could only guess.  No cadet knew, unless it were Holmes, what Prescott’s intentions were about quitting the corps in the near future.  And Greg, usually both chatty and impulsive, could be as cold and silent as a sphinx where his chum’s secrets or interests were concerned.

Had he wished, he might have gone home at Christmas, for a day or two, for he was on the good-conduct roll; but Dick felt that Christmas at home would be a heart break just now.  As he did not go, Greg did not go either.