Football is all at sixes and sevens, this year, muttered Dave Darrin disconsolately. "I can tell you something more than that," added Tom Reade mysteriously. "What?" asked Dick Prescott, looking at Reade with interest, for it was unusual for Reade o employ that tone or air. "Two members of the Athletics Committee have intimated to Coach Morton that they'd rather see football passed by this year." "What?" gasped Dick. He was staring hard now. "Fact," nodded Tom. "At least, I believe it to be a fact." "There must be something wrong with that news," put in Greg Holmes anxiously.
My son, Richard. He is home on his furlough from the Military Academy at West Point. Words would fail in describing motherly pride with which Mrs. Prescott introduced her son to Mrs. Davidson, wife of the new pastor. "I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Prescott," said Mrs. Davidson, looking up, for up she had to glance in order to see the face of this tall, distinguished-looking cadet. Dick Prescott's return bow was made with the utmost grace, yet without affectation. His natty straw hat he held in his right hand, close to his breast. Mrs. Davidson was a sensible and motherly woman, who wished to give this young man the pleasantest greeting, but she was plainly at a loss to know what to say. Like many excellent and ordinarily well-informed American people, she had not the haziest notions of West Point.
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - We thought ten dollars would be about right," Dick Prescott announced. "Per week?" inquired Mr. Titmouse, as though he doubted his hearing "Oh, dear, no! For the month of August, sir." Mr. Newbegin Titmouse surveyed his young caller through half-closed eyelids "Ten dollars for the use of that fine wagon for a whole month?" cried Mr. Titmouse in astonishment. "Absurd!
I say you did! cried Fred Ripley, hotly. Dick Prescott's cheeks turned a dull red as he replied, quietly, after swallowing a choky feeling in his throat: "I have already told you that I did not do it." "Then who did do the contemptible thing?" insisted Ripley, sneeringly. Fully forty boys, representing all the different classes at the Gridley High School, stood looking on at this altercation in the school grounds. Half a dozen of the girls, too, hovered in the background, interested, or curious, though not venturing too close to what might turn out to be a fight in hot blood. "If I knew," rejoined Dick, in that same quiet voice, in which one older in the world's ways might have detected the danger-signal, "I wouldn't tell you.
Clang! "Attention, please." The barely audible droning of study ceased promptly in the big assembly room of the Gridley High School. The new principal, who had just stepped into the room, and who now stood waiting behind his flat-top desk on the platform, was a tall, thin, severe-looking man of thirty-two or three. For this year Dr. Carl Thornton, beloved principal for a half-score of years, was not in command at the school. Ill health had forced the good old doctor to take at least a year's rest, and this stranger now sat in the Thornton chair. "Mr. Harper," almost rasped out Mr. Cantwell's voice, "stop rustling that paper.
Hello, Timmy! "'Lo, Reade." "Warm night," observed Tom Reade, as he paused not far from the street corner to wipe his perspiring face and neck with his handkerchief. "Middling warm," admitted Timmy Finbrink. Yet the heat ouldn't have made him extremely uncomfortable, for Tom Reade, amiable and budding senior in the Gridley High School, smiled good naturedly as he stood surveying as much as he could make out of the face of Timmy Finbrink in that dark stretch of the street. Timmy was merely a prospective freshman, having been graduated a few days before from the North Grammar School in Gridley.
Harrie Irving Hancock (1866?-1922) wrote many popular boys' adventure novels, mysteries, and westerns. His most famous books were a series of four novels about Germany's invasion of the United States, set in 1920-21. In the Battle for New York is the second in this series.
Harrie Irving Hancock (1866/8-1922) was an American chemist and writer, mainly remembered as an author of children's literature and juveniles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A prolific author who liked to work at night, Hancock wrote for the New York Journal, the New York World, and Leslie's Weekly. He was a journalist for the Boston Globe, served as a war correspondent in Cuba and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, and produced more than 50 serials for Norman Munro's juvenile magazine Golden Hours between 1889 and 1901. His output included westerns, detective stories, historical adventures and several series of books for boys. He also published books on physical fitness and an Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Manners, and served as the editor of a History of West Point. He is perhaps best known for his four-book series The Invasion of the United States (1916), which depicted a fictional invasion of the USA by Germany in 1920-21 - reflecting, and to some degree helping to intensify, the shift of American public opinion towards getting involved in the First World War.
So Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton have been here? demanded Midshipman Dave Darrin. That handsome young member of the brigade of midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis was now in mufti, or cits, - meaning, in other words, that he was out of his Naval uniform and attired in the conventional clothing of a young American when calling on his sweetheart. It will make the situation even clearer to the reader to explain that Dave was back in the home town, on his September leave, after just having completed his second summer practice cruise with the three upper classes from Annapolis. Dave was now a fine looking and "husky" second classman. He was just a shade more than half way through his course of instruction at Annapolis.
LIEUTENANT POPE, battalion adjutant of the first battalion of the Thirty-fourth United States Infantry, looked up from his office desk as the door swung open and a smart, trim-looking young corporal strode in. Pausing before the desk, the young corporal came to a precise, formal salute. Then, dropping his right hand to his side, the soldier stood at attention. "Good morning, Corporal Overton." "Good morning, sir." "What do you wish?" "I have been making inquiries, sir," continued Corporal Hal Overton, "and I am informed that you have some signaling flags among the quartermaster's stores." "I believe I have," nodded Lieutenant Pope. "I have come to ask, sir, if I may borrow a couple of the flags." "Borrow? Then, Corporal, I take it that you do not want the flags for duty purposes?
How can a midshipman and gentleman act in that way? The voice of Midshipman David Darrin, United States Navy, vibrated uneasily as he turned to his comrades. "It's a shame - that's what it is," quivered Mr. Farley, also of the third class at the United States Naval Academy. "But the question is," propounded Midshipman Dan Dalzell, "what are we going to do about it?" "Is it any part of our business to bother with the fellow?" demanded Farley half savagely. Now Farley was rather hot-tempered, though he was "all there" in points that involved the honor of the brigade of midshipmen.
Leaving the road that wound by the officers' quarters at the north end, turning on to the road that passed the hotel, a hot, somewhat tired and rather dusty column of cadets swung along towards their tents in the distance. The column was under arms, as though the cadets had been engaged in target practice or out on a reconnaissance. The young men wore russet shoes, gray trousers and leggings, gray flannel shirts and soft campaign hats. Their appearance was not that of soldiers on parade, but of the grim toilers and fighters who serve in the field. Their work that morning had, in fact, been strictly in line with labor, for the young men, under Captain McAneny, had been engaged in the study of field fortifications. To be more exact, the young men had been digging military trenches - yes - digging them, for at West Point hard labor is not beneath the cadet's dignity.
I wish I had brought my electric flash out here with me, muttered Harry Hazelton uneasily. "I told you that you'd better do it," chuckled Tom Reade. "But how could I know that the night would be pitch dark?" Harry demanded. "I don't know this gulf weather yet, and fifteen minutes ago the stars were out in full force. Now look at them!" "How can I look at them?" demanded Tom, halting. "My flashlight won't pierce the clouds." Reade halted on his dark, dangerous footway, and Harry, just behind him, uttered a sigh of relief and halted also. "I never was in such a place as this before.
Look, Tom! There is a real westerner! Harry Hazelton's eyes sparkled, his whole manner was one of intense interest. "Eh?" queried Tom Reade, turning around from his distant view of a sharp, towering peak of the Rockies. "There's the real hing in the way of a westerner," Harry Hazelton insisted in a voice in which there was some awe. "I don't believe he is," retorted Tom skeptically. "You're going to say, I suppose, that the man is just some freak escaped from the pages of a dime novel?" demanded Harry. "No; he looks more like a hostler on a leave of absence from a stranded Wild West show," Tom replied slowly. There was plenty of time for them to inspect the stranger in question. Tom and Harry were seated on a mountain springboard wagon drawn by a pair of thin horses. Their driver, a boy of about eighteen, sat on a tiny make-believe seat almost over the traces. This youthful driver had been minding his own business so assiduously during the past three hours that Harry had voted him a sullen fellow. This however, the driver was not.
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