tt. "If ever we raise
her I'll prove it, too."

"Well, young gentlemen, I suppose you have heard the news?" questioned
the colonel, as the aviator-inventor and his helper walked off to one
side of the campus, talking earnestly together.

"You mean about the airship instruction we are to get here, sir?" asked
Dick.

"That's it. And I am also glad to announce that I have heard from the
war department, and they are going to send some army aviators here to
give us the benefit of their work, and also to show some of you cadets
how to fly."

There was a cheer at this, though some of the lads looked a bit dubious.

"Are you really going in for it, Dick?" asked Innis, after there had
been an informal discussion among the colonel and some of the boys
about the aviation instruction.

"Well, I am, unless I change my mind," replied Dick, with a smile. "Of
course, after I make my first flight, if I ever do, it may be my last
one."

"Huh! You're not taking a very cheerful view of it," retorted Innis,
"to think that you're going to come a smash the first shot out of the
locker."

"Oh, I didn't mean just that," replied Dick, quickly. "I meant that I
might lose my nerve after the first flight, and not go up again."

"Guess there isn't much danger of you losing your nerve," said Paul
Drew, admiringly. "I've generally noticed that you have it with you on
most occasions."

"Thanks!" exclaimed Dick, with a mock salute.

Strolling over the campus, Dick and his chums talked airships and
aviation matters until it was time for guard-mount.

During the next day or two it might have been noticed that Dick
Hamilton was rather more quiet than usual. In fact his chums did
notice, and comment on it. A number of times they had seen the young
millionaire in a brown study, walking off by himself, and again he
could be observed strolling about, gazing earnestly up at the clouds
and sky.

"Say, I wonder what's come over Dick?" asked Paul of Innis one
afternoon.

"Blessed if I know," was the answer, "unless he's fallen in love."

"Get out! He's too sensible. But he sure has something on his mind."

"I agree with you. Well, if he wants to know he'll tell us."

So they let the matter drop for the time being. But Dick's abstraction
grew deeper. He wrote a number of letters, and sent some telegrams,
and his friends began to wonder if matters at Dick's home were not
altogether right.

But the secret, if such it could be call