his morals.
Why, with his money, Greg, Dodge would know how to find people,
apparently respectable, who would be willing to accept a price for
perjuring themselves."

"Humph!" uttered Greg.

"If Dodge could get such testimony, and his perjurers would stick
to their yarns," continued Dick, "then the young scoundrel might
be actually able to carry out his threats."

"He wouldn't dare!"

"If it were anything high-minded and dangerous, Dodge wouldn't
dare," admitted Dick. "But minds like his will dare a good deal
to put through anything scoundrelly against people who try to
be decent."

CHAPTER III

DICK & CO. AGAIN

"Hey, there, you galoot! You thin, long-drawn-out seven feet of
tin soldier!"

After having been home a week, Dick Prescott flushed as he wheeled
about to meet this jeering greeting.

In another instant every trace of his wrath had vanished.

"Tom Reade!" hailed Dick in great delight, turning and rushing
at his old High School chum. "And good little Harry Hazelton!"

It was, indeed, the young engineer pair, Reade and Hazelton, old-time
members of Dick & Co., the great High School crowd of Gridley.
Reade and Hazelton, after finishing at the High School, had gone
out to Colorado to serve under the engineer in charge of a great
piece of railway construction work. The adventures of Tom and
Harry, in the wild spots of the West, are fully set forth in the
volumes of the _Young Engineers Series_.

"The last fellow I expected to meet in Gridley!" cried Dick,
overflowing with delight as he stuck out both hands at once and
grasped theirs.

"Well, we are, aren't we?" demanded Reade.

"You are---what?"

"The last fellows you've met in Gridley. But where's Greg?"

"If he's out of bed," grinned Prescott, "he's in cit. clothes."

"Carrying a rifle and marching the lock-step---the route-step,
I mean---has dulled your brain," growled Tom Reade. "Is Greg
in Gridley?"

"What scoundrel is taking my name in vein?" demanded Holmes, coming
upon the trio.

Then there were hearty greetings, all over again. But in the
end Reade looked Greg over from head to foot.

"Do they make you sleep on a stretcher at West Point?" Tom wanted
to know. "Or what do they do, to pull a pair of galoots out to
the length that you two have attained."

"It's the physical training and the military drills," explained
Prescott, laughing. "But my! You fellows look like the Indian's
head on a copper cent!"

Tom