time, from touching hands
with the fellow."

Miss Meade then related their experience, and the discomfiture
of Cadets Douglass and Jordan.

"That's just about like Doug," observed Greg Holmes. "I'll bet
he never thought until Laura called off the signal for the kick."

"What's that?" demanded Miss Bentley.

"Pardon me," apologized Greg. "I think in football terms altogether
too often. But I'm glad Jordan saw the goal and then lost it."

"I think Dick wants to tell us something about the fellow Jordan,
and some of the other cadets," Belle hinted.

Between them the chums told the story of how the "silence" had come
to be imposed. Prescott did not, however, tell his feminine visitors
how he had happened to catch Jordan outside the guard line.

"How did that happen?" asked Laura innocently.

"Now, I'd tell you before I would any one else on earth," protested
Dick with warmth, "but I haven't told Greg or anyone else. I had
good military reasons, not personal ones."

"Oh!" replied Laura. And, not understanding, she felt more than
a little hurt by Dick's failure to answer frankly.

Both girls, however, talked very comfortingly, and Mrs. Bentley
very sensibly aided their efforts. All three tried to make it
quite plain to Dick Prescott that no amount, or consequence, of
lack of understanding by his classmates could make any difference
with his standing in their eyes.

Presently Mrs. Bentley consented to the girls strolling down the
road between the hotel and cadet barracks. Dick, of course, walked
with Laura, while Greg and Belle remained at a discreet,
out-of-earshot distance.

At last they stood again by the gateway through the shrubbery at
the edge of the hotel grounds.

"Dick-----" began Laura hesitatingly.

"Yes?" asked the young cadet captain.

"Dick, no matter how far your classmates push this matter," begged
Laura, her eyes big and earnest, "don't let their acts force you
out of the Army. No matter what happens---stick!"

Cadet Prescott shook his head wearily. "I can't stick," he replied
firmly, "if I am shown that my presence in the Army is not going
to be for the good and the harmony of the service!"

Laura sighed. Another keen pang of disappointment, was hers.

She now believed that her influence over Dick Prescott was not
anywhere near as strong as she had hoped it would be.

A very wretched girl rested her head on a pillow that night, and
slept but poorly.

In the forenoon, whi