“Greg, you send Dave Darrin a short note for me, will you?” begged Dick, as he toiled away at the missive to Laura.  “Old Dave will want only the bare facts; that will be enough for him.  He’ll cheerfully wait for details until some time when we’re all graduated and meet in the service.”

Dave Darrin’s reply was short, but characteristic: 

“Of course dear old Dick came through all right!  He’s the kind of fellow that always does and always must come through all right—–­otherwise there’d be no particular use in being manly.”

No word came from the missing Jordan.  Truth to tell, no one seemed to care, outside of the young man’s father.  It is rare, indeed, that a cadet deserts, and when he does, unless he has taken government property with him, no effort is made to find him.

By the end of the week, Dick Prescott was the hope of the Army nine, as he had once been of the eleven.

A cadet is always in condition.  His daily training keeps him there.  So Dick had only to give his arm a little extra work, increasing it some each day.

“Do you think I’m going to be in satisfactory shape, sir?” Dick asked the Army coach Friday afternoon.

“If something doesn’t happen to you, Prescott, you’re going to be the strongest, speediest pitcher I’ve ever seen on the Army nine,” replied Lieutenant Lawrence.

“Isn’t that saying a good deal, sir?”

“Yes; but you’re the sort of athlete that one may say a great deal about,” replied Lieutenant Lawrence, with a confident smile.  “And Mr. Holmes is very nearly as good a man as you are.”

“I always thought him fully as good, even better,” replied Prescott.

“There isn’t much to choose between you,” admitted coach.  “I wish we could always look for such men on our Army teams.”

“You can one of these days, sir.”

“When will that day come?”

“It will come, sir, when public-spirited citizens everywhere go in strongly for athletics in the High Schools, as they did in the town where Holmes and I received our earlier training.”

The letter from Cadet Prescott’s mother came almost by return mail.  She had never for a moment lost faith, she wrote, that all would come out right with her boy, and she was heartily glad that her faith had been justified.  She was sorry, indeed, for that unfortunate other cadet whose enmity for Dick had been his own undoing in the long run.

It was some days later when Laura’s letter reached the now eager pitcher of the Army nine.

Now that letter was cordial enough in every way, and Laura made no secret of her delight and of her pride in her friend.

“Yet there’s something lacking here,” murmured Prescott uneasily, as he read the letter through once more.  “What is it?  Laura writes as if she were trying to show more reserve with me than she did once.  What is the matter?  Has she cooled toward me at just the time when I shall soon be able to offer her my name and my future?”