The High School Captain of the Team Part 30

But Greg Holmes, though he was wildly anxious to go to West Point, felt certain that it would be useless to go there as d.i.c.k Prescott's alternate.

"I hate to see you not try at all, Greg," declared d.i.c.k. "Why don't you try? If you beat me out there won't be any hard feelings."

"I couldn't beat you out, and I don't want to, either," responded Greg. "But wait! I may have something to tell you later on."

Dan Dalzell had much the same kind of a talk with Dave Darrin.

Dan felt the call to the sailor's life, but hadn't any notion that he could slip in ahead of Darrin.

"Even if I could, Dave, I wouldn't try it," declared Dan earnestly.

"I want badly enough to go to Annapolis, and I admit it. But I believe you're just about crazy to get there."

"I am," Dave admitted honestly. "But the prize goes to the best fellow, Dan. Jump in, old fellow, and have your try at it."

Dalzell, however, shook his head and remained silent on the subject after that.

To both d.i.c.k and Dave it seemed as though the next few days simply refused to budge along on the calendar. Certainly neither of them had ever known time to pa.s.s so slowly before.

"I hope I'll be able to keep my nerve up until the seventeenth,"

groaned Darrin.

"Surely, you will," grinned d.i.c.k. "You've got to!"

"I've been studying until all the words on a page seem to run together, and I don't know one word from another," complained Dave.

"Then drop study---if you dare to!"

"I'm thinking of it," proposed Darrin seriously. "Actually, I've been boning so that the whole thing gets on my nerves, and stays there like a cargo of lead."

"Let's pledge ourselves, then, not to study on the fifteenth or the sixteenth," urged d.i.c.k.

"I'll go you, right off, on that," cried Darrin eagerly.

"And we'll spend those two days in the open air, roaming around, and trying to enjoy ourselves," added Prescott.

"Enjoy ourselves---with all the load of suspense hanging over our heads?" gasped Darrin.

"Well, we'll try it anyway."

To most people in and around Gridley the world, in these few days, seemed to bob along very much as usual. d.i.c.k and Dave, however, knew better.

At last came the evening of the sixteenth! Both anxious boys turned in early, though neither expected to sleep much. Both, however, were soon in the land of Nod.

But d.i.c.k awoke at half-past four on the morning of the fateful seventeenth. By five o'clock he knew that he wasn't going to sleep any more. So he got up and dressed.

Dave Darrin was in his bath, that same morning, before four o'clock.

Then he, too, dressed, and wondered whether every other fellow who was going into the contest to-day felt as restless.

The mothers of both boys were astir almost as early. Mothers can't take these examinations, but mothers know what a son's suspense means.

d.i.c.k and Dave met at the station a full twenty minutes before train time.

CHAPTER XIX

Tom Reade Bosses the Job

"Ugh!" s.h.i.+vered Dave, as the chums met on the platform. "It's cold out here!"

"Come inside, then, and get warm. But you're a great athlete, to mind an ordinary December morning," laughed d.i.c.k Prescott.

Together they stepped into the waiting room.

"What time does our train go?" asked Dave, though he had known the time of this train for the last week.

"Seven-forty," replied d.i.c.k.

"And it's seven-twenty, now. Whew, what a await!"

"I could have stayed home a little longer," nodded d.i.c.k. "Only I told father and mother that I'd feel more like being started if I got down here this far on the way."

"Sure thing," nodded Dave sympathetically. "My Dad had to hold on to me to stop my leaving the house an hour earlier than I did."

Both boys laughed, though not very heartily. Each was under a terrific strain---just from wondering!

"If I get through, and win out to-day," muttered d.i.c.k, "I know I shan't feel half as anxious when it comes time to take the graduating exams."

"No," agreed Dave. "Then you'll know you have a chance; but to-day you can't be sure of that much."

Five minutes before train time the chums were astonished at seeing another of the chums walk into the station. It was Tom Reade, looking as jovial and contented as a youngster could possibly look.

"Hullo, Tom!" came from d.i.c.k.

"Howdy, Tom, old man!" was Dave's greeting.

"Hullo, fellows!" from Reade.

"Where are you bound?" inquired d.i.c.k.

"Wilburville?"

"_What_?"

"Fact!" Reade a.s.sured them.

"Going to the exams.?" Dave demanded quickly.