nnounced at supper formation
to-night. It is set well ahead in order to give the fellows plenty
of time to think over the subject for discussion."

"That discussion," guessed Holmes, "is to be as to the best means
of driving Dick from the corps."

"You've guessed it, suh," replied the Virginian sorrowfully.
"Whatever the class feels called upon to do, suh, I reckon it will
be something that will break our poor camel's back."

CHAPTER XIII

THE FIGURES IN THE DARK

And Dick?

The reader will hardly need to be told that this spirited young
cadet was suffering his unmerited disgrace as keenly as ever.

More keenly, in fact, for every day that the silence continued it
seemed to add to the weight of the burden that bound him down.

Yet Greg asked no questions, for he felt that it would be safer
not to do so. He had just barely told Prescott of the purpose
of the coming class meeting, which the latter cadet had already
guessed for himself, however.

"I suppose I'll have a few loyal friends at that meeting?" asked
Dick, with a sad smile.

"Just as many friends as ever," asserted Holmes stoutly.

"I'm mighty grateful for that," nodded Dick. "But what I seem to
need is more friends than ever."

"We'll find them for you, if there's any way to do it," promised
Holmes, and there the talk dropped.

"If the class goes against me again, and harder than before, I'm
certain I shall have to see Lieutenant Denton once more and tell
him that I can't stand it any longer," Dick told himself.

The class meeting was to be held on a Monday evening. On the
night of the Saturday before, when scores of cadets were over
at Cullum Hall at a merry "hop," Prescott slipped out of barracks
by himself in Greg's absence.

Almost unconsciously Prescott's steps turned in the direction
of Trophy Point. In the darkness he stood before Battle Monument,
on which are inscribed the names of the West Point graduates who
have fallen in battles.

"Will my name ever be there, or have any chance to be there?"
wondered Dick, a big lump rising in his throat.

A tear stood in either eye, but he brushed them aside as unworthy
of a soldier. Was he ever going to be a soldier, he wondered.

"I don't know that I'm really ready to be killed in battle," thought
Dick grimly. "It would be enough to know that my name is to be
on the roll of graduates of the Military Academy, and afterwards
on the rolls of the Army as an officer who had serve