Late in the afternoon, when recreation time came, all was speedily changed. Every member of the squad hastily reported in togs. Scores of midshipmen not of the squad hastened over to see the practice work. The scores were presently increased to hundreds. Fifty or more Naval officers detailed at the yard were scattered along the side lines. Many of the wives and daughters of officers stationed at Annapolis turned out to view the work. Other young ladies came from Annapolis. There was also a big delegation of "St. Johnnies," as the gray-clad young men from St. John's College are called.

The news had evidently traveled far that the Navy had two new men on the team who were expected to prove "wonders."

"A big part of this crowd is out to see you and Danny boy," Hepson remarked to Darrin.

"Haven't they anything better to do with their time, then?" laughed Dave.

"Great Scott, man! Every one of the spectators wants to see the Navy beat the Army this year."

"But these spectators are a heap cheered up by what they've heard about you and Dalzell."

Dave, however, went about his work all but unconsciously. Never much of an egotist, he declined to believe himself the star man of the Navy eleven.

When Coach Havens called off the two teams that were to play that day, Jetson observed that he was not called for either.

"It looks as though Darrin has queered me," muttered that midshipman gloomily to himself. "I didn't think Darrin was quite as bad as that."

After the practice game had started, and Dave had put through the most brilliant play that he had yet exhibited, the air rang with his name from hundreds of throats.

"That's the way!" grumbled Jetson. "It's all Darrin now! These idiots will forget that I was ever at Annapolis."

Jetson sulked about. After the rebuke he had received the day before from the head coach, he did not dare to carry his sulk so far as to go and un-tog without leave.

Towards the end of the first half of the practice game, a man on the second team was hurt enough to be retired, and Joyce was called.

"They might have given me a chance," quivered Jetson sulkily. "I'm a lot better player than the fool coach imagines. But, anyway, I suppose Darrin has turned the coach and Hepson against me. I owe Darrin for that one!"

Five minutes later another player of the second eleven was retired with an injured wrist.

"Howard!" called the coach briskly.

"Excused for to-day, sir," reported another player.

"Any one but me!" growled Jetson.

"Jetson!" sounded the head coach's heavy voice.

Midshipman Jetson started. His face flushed. Then, for an instant, a sulky impulse seized him to reply that he did not feel up to form to-day. But the midshipman smothered that desire and started forward.

"Here, sir," he reported.

"Take right guard on second," directed Coach Havens.

"Very good, sir."

The game was resumed. Jetson, however, had a face full of sulkiness. As he joined the line-up his eyes rested on Dave Darrin.

"I wonder if Jetson means me any harm?" flashed through Dave's mind. In an instant, however, he dismissed the suspicion.

"Jetson is a midshipman, a gentleman and a man of honor," thought Darrin generously.

The whistle sounded, the ball was snapped back and passed, Darrin received it and dashed forward to carry it past the opponents.

In a twinkling there was a staggering crash. Dave was down with the ball, with men of two teams piled above him.

At the sound of the referee's whistle the mass disentangled itself. Dave and Jetson were at the bottom of the heap. Jetson was the last man up, but Dave still lay there.

"Surgeon here?" called the coach's steady voice, devoid of excitement. But there was anxiety enough when it was seen that Midshipman Darrin still lay face downward.

"Has Darrin been hurt—our Darrin—the great Darrin?" flew from tongue to tongue.

"Did Jetson do it?" was another question that was instantly asked.



CHAPTER VIII

DAN TRIES HARD TO KEEP COOL

A surgeon and a hospital man were quickly on the spot, the others, anxious as they were, drawing back considerately to give the men of medicine room in which to work.

As Dave Darrin was gently turned over on his back it was seen that Damn's face was a mass of blood.

"Jetson's work," grunted two or three of the players.

"He did it on purpose!"

"If he didn't, then the fellow is too clumsy to be trusted on the gridiron, anyway."

"We must chase Jetson away from the squad."

"Silence!" remarked Head Coach Havens, very simply, though in a tone which meant that obedience must follow.

Jetson, however, was not ignorant of the comments that were passing. His dark face flushed hotly with anger.

"They'll blame anything on me, if I'm within a mile of the field," he told himself sullenly.

"Is Mr. Darrin badly injured, doctor!" inquired Lieutenant-Commander Havens of the Naval surgeon.

"I think not, sir, beyond a possibly nasty mark on the face," replied the surgeon, as he examined and directed the hospital men. "Mr. Darrin is merely stunned, from too hard an impact of some sort. He'll soon have his eyes open—there they come now."

As if to back up the surgeon, Dave opened his eyes, staring curiously at the faces within his range of vision.

"What's all this fuss about?" Dave asked quietly.

"There isn't any fuss, Mr. Darrin," replied the surgeon. "You were stunned by the force of that scrimmage, and there's some blood on your face."

"Let me wipe it off then, please, sir?" Dave begged. "I want to get back in the game."

"You won't play again, Mr. Darrin," replied the surgeon.

"Not play this season?" demanded Dave in anguished amazement. "Please don't joke with me, sir."

"Oh, you'll play, after a few days," replied the surgeon, wetting a piece of gauze from the contents of a bottle that he had taken from his bag. With the gauze he wiped the blood away from Darrin's cheek, revealing a surface cut of more width than depth. Then a light bandage was put on over the cut.

"Now, I guess you can rise all right, Mr. Darrin. This hospital man will go over to hospital with you."

"I'm not ordered to stay there, I hope, sir?" murmured Dave anxiously.

"For two or three days, at any rate—yes," replied the Naval surgeon. "Not because you're going to be weak, but because we've got to have you under our eyes all the time if your face is to heal without a bad scar."

Midshipman Darrin brought his hand up in salute to the surgeon, and again to Lieutenant-Commander Havens.

"Darrin laid up for a few days!" growled Captain Hepson, of the Navy team, just after Dave had started. "Now, when every day's work counts!" Then wheeling suddenly:

"How did Darrin come to get cut in that fashion, anyway! Mr. Jetson, do you know anything about it?"

"What do you mean, sir?" demanded Jetson, bridling. "Do you insinuate that I tried to put a scar on Mr. Darrin's face?"

"I asked you what you knew about the accident—if it were an accident?" Hepson pursued coldly.

"Your 'if,' sir, is insulting!"

Then there came to the spot a presence that could not be treated with anger. Lieutenant-Commander Havens was determined to know the truth.

"Mr. Jetson, had you anything in your possession, or did you wear anything, that could cut Mr. Damn's face like that?" demanded the head coach.

"Nothing, sir, unless the sole of one of my shoes was responsible," returned Jetson, barely concealing his anger under a mask of respect to an officer of the Navy.

"Let me see your shoes; sit down on the ground first, Mr. Jetson."

The midshipman obeyed, though with no very good grace, and held up his right shoe for the inspection of the head coach.

"Now the other shoe, Mr. Jetson. Hm! Yes; along the inner sole of this shoe there are signs of what looks very much like blood. See here, Mr. Hepson."

"Yes, sir; most certainly this is a streak of blood rubbed into the leather along this rather sharp edge of the sole."

"May I suggest, Mr. Havens," hinted Jetson, "that something else may have scratched Mr. Darrin's face, and that the blood trickled to my shoe? I was under Mr. Darrin, somewhat, sir, in the scrimmage when the bunch went down."

There was really nothing that could be proved, in any case, so the head coach could only say very quietly:

"Let the practice go on, Mr. Hepson. Put Mr. Wardell temporarily in Mr. Darrin's place on the line."

There was one in the group who had not said a word so far. But he had been looking on, his keen eyes studying Jetson's face. That looker-on was Midshipman Dan Dalzell, who, as the reader knows, sometimes displayed a good deal of temper.

"Jetson," muttered Dan, as the other midshipman came over by him, "I shall need a little talk with you at the early convenience of us both."

"Whenever you like," retorted Midshipman Jetson, flashing back a look of defiance.

Then the game went on. By supper time the men of the brigade knew that Darrin was getting along comfortably; that he was in no pain and that he was in hospital only in the hope that he might be saved the annoyance of wearing a disfiguring scar on his face throughout all his life.

"I'm afraid that some of the fellows think I purposely cut Darrin up in that fashion," remarked Jetson to his tablemates during the evening meal.

"Don't you know that you didn't?" inquired one of the midshipmen laconically. None of the other men at table took heed of Jetson's words.

At some of the other tables equal silence did not prevail. Midshipmen who did not accuse or suspect Jetson of intentional wickedness expressed the opinion that he was, at all events, careless and not a valuable member of the football squad.

Jetson himself was wholly aware that he was more or less suspected in the minds of many, and the knowledge made him savage.

During the few minutes recreation that followed the evening meal, Dan Dalzell approached the sullen one, who was now standing quite alone.

"Mr. Jetson, I shall be glad to have a talk with you," announced Dan. "Will you come to my room, or shall I go to yours?"

"Lead the way to your room, sir," replied Jetson stiffly.

Dan did so, and behind the door the two midshipmen faced each other.

"Well, sir!" demanded the visitor.

"Mr. Jetson, both times that you have played against Darrin something has happened to him."

"Don't insinuate, Mr. Dalzell. If you anything to say, speak out plainly, sir."

"I hardly know what to say," Midshipman Dan confessed. "As a midshipman, your honor should be above question."

"Do you wish to remark that it isn't?"

"Why, I don't know," Dan answered frankly. "It seems a fearful thing to say, or even to think, about a midshipman."

"Mr. Dalzell, either I did, or I didn't, intentionally injure Mr. Darrin. Yon must think one thing or the other. If you suspect that I did the thing intentionally, then why beat about the bush?"

"I don't want to beat about the bush, and, on the other hand, I don't want to do you any injustice, Mr. Jetson, I thought perhaps you would be willing to help me out by proffering your midshipman's word of honor—"

"And I," rejoined Jetson in cold anger, "consider it insulting, sir, that I should be asked to pledge my word of honor."

"That is an extreme position to take," protested Dan. "No good man, when appearances are against him, should be afraid to offer his word of honor."

"Suppose," sneered Jetson, in suppressed fury, "I should go to the other extreme, and say that I did it on purpose?"

"Then I'd knock you down, like a dog," Dan answered directly and simply, "and next call on the men here to drive you forth from the brigade."

"If you think you could knock me down," quivered Midshipman Jetson, "you'd better go ahead and find out whether your guess is correct. Dalzell, you've been highly insulting, and I don't mind declaring that a fight with you would suit me, at present, better than anything that I can think of."

"Then you have your recourse, in a challenge," Dan hinted promptly.

"What's the need of a challenge, seconds—or of anything but fists? I don't need them."

"The brigade claims some supervision over fights between the men here," Dan replied. "I intend to demand that the class take up, as a class matter, the mishap to Darrin this afternoon."

"You—you hound!" panted Jetson, in a sudden flare-up of anger.

"Careful!" warned Dalzell, clenching his fists and facing his man squarely.

With a snort of rage Jetson launched himself forward, aiming two blows at Dan.

Dan parried the blows coolly, but his eyes flashed.

He had not lost control of himself, but he was warming up to the instinct of fighting when no other course seemed open.



CHAPTER IX

A NARROW SQUEAK WITH THE O.C.

Jetson's next blow grazed Midshipman Dalzell's chin. The follow-up blow landed on Dan's left ear.

Now Dalzell "sailed in" in earnest. He attacked forcefully and swiftly. Jetson was forced to give ground. Dan pursued him around the room. Being no coward, Jetson stood well up to the work, driving in for himself at least two out of every five blows that were landed.

Rap-tap-tap! sounded on the door, but neither combatant heard.

Smash! Dan's forceful right landed on Jetson's neck, sending that midshipman to the floor, whereupon Dalzell sprang back three paces.

"Take your time getting on to your feet," called Dan in a low voice.

"I don't want any time," snapped Jetson, leaping to his feet.

The words of both speakers were heard at the door, and the visitor who had knocked now promptly entered.

Fortunate it was for the combatants facing each other that the intruder was not one of the discipline officers. Had it been, both midshipmen would have been reported at once under charges that would have borne serious results.

Instead, it was Farley who entered, followed by Page, Hepson and Joyce.

"Wow!" uttered Midshipman Farley in a low voice. Then: "Stop this, fellows!"

At the order, which Dan knew to be intended for his own good, the latter turned away, letting his hands fall. Jetson, on the point of a rush, realized that he had better desist.

"Joyce, you stand outside," ordered Farley in a low voice. "Stand right at the door. If you see the O.C. (officer in charge) turning into this corridor, you rap as hard as you can on the door, and we'll understand."

Midshipman Joyce wanted most badly to be a spectator to what was likely to happen on the inner side of the door, but he had the good sense to realize that some one must do guard duty, so he stepped outside, closing the door after him.

"Now, gentlemen, what's this all about?" demanded Hepson in a low, smooth voice.

"It means," cried Jetson passionately, "that I'm not going to stand any more of this petty persecution. Everyone has been trying to pretend that he believes I've been trying to do Darrin up so that he can't play on the Navy football team. It's all just a mean scheme to keep me from making the Navy eleven."

"There's no such scheme afloat, or I'd know about it," returned Hepson coolly. "Fact is, there isn't any intention whatever of playing you on the Navy team."

"Ah, you admit it!" snapped Midshipman Jetson, first turning white, after which his face showed a deep crimson of humiliation. "You've already done the dirty work."

"Fellow, stop this talk!" commanded Hepson, almost at a white heat of resentment, "Among midshipmen and gentlemen there can be no thought of what you term 'dirty work.' The fact that you won't play with us is due to your uncontrollable temper. A fellow who can't control his nerves and temper isn't fitted to play football—a game that requires cool judgment at every moment of the game."

"Then, while you're telling me what to stop, you just stop addressing me as 'fellow,'" cried Jetson, his lip quivering with rage.

"I'll admit that was hasty on my part," agreed Midshipman Hepson, "but it seemed necessary to use some word to bring you to your senses. And now, this fight, which would get you both into serious trouble if a discipline officer came upon the scene, must cease."

"I'm afraid it can't," broke in Midshipman Dalzell with quiet dignity. "At least, I won't agree to stopping until Mr. Jetson admits himself satisfied. It was he who started the fight, and only his word can close it. But we don't want you other fellows pulled into this trouble as spectators, so we'll wait until you all withdraw."

"If you're determined to fight," rejoined Hepson, who was the only first classman present, "then we don't want to stop the fight. We'll stay and see it pulled off fairly. But, Dalzell, do you really want to fight?"

"I didn't want to," Dan answered. "But, now that Mr. Jetson has started it, it must go on until he's satisfied. Up with your hands, sir, and when you start in, I'll answer you."

The visitors skipped back, in order to leave the combatants plenty of room for footwork. Since Jetson had heard definite announcement of the fact that he could not hope to be called to the Navy eleven, his inward flame of passion had burned up high. He was now ready to fight with all the force that there was in him.

In the first few seconds his assault was so resolute that Dalzell was forced to give ground. As he slowly retreated and shifted, Jetson drove in more impetuously than ever.

Midshipman Dan found himself at last in a position of advantage.

"Now, hammer him, Danny boy!" advised; Farley, breathing deeply.

"Silence among the spectators," warned Hepson in a low, stern voice. "Absolutely fair play, gentlemen, to both contestants!"

Again the showering exchange of blows. Jetson, after his late rapid expenditure of force and nerve-energy, was now just the least bit confused. Dan landed on one ear, and then against his enemy's chin. Both were hard, dazing blows, though neither left a mark.

Then an uppercut and Dalzell landed on Jetson's jugular. With, a gasp the fellow went down to the floor.

"One, two, three, four—" Hepson began counting.

"Don't bother with the count," begged Dalzell "I'll give him all the time he wants to get to his feet."

Rap-tap-tap-tap! came a banging summons on the door, followed by Midshipman Joyce's voice demanding:

"Are you in, Danny boy?"

Swift as a flash Hepson and Farley leaped forward, fairly snatching Jetson, who was still half dazed, to his feet.

In the same instant Page called out cheerily:

"Come in under full steam, whatever craft is outside!"

"Brace up? Jetson! Don't look silly or dazed,", warned Hepson, in a stern whisper. "That rap was the signal of the approach of the O.C."

Farley was industriously brushing the signs of dust from Jetson's uniform.

"I tell you, fellows," boomed Hepson's tranquil, earnest voice, "we've got to hustle every minute of practice time. Nothing else will give us a chance to win."

"We haven't even a chance if Darry isn't soon back on the gridiron," argued Farley.

"Oh, he'll be all right soon," broke in Dan Dalzell eagerly.

Joyce had already stepped into the room, leaving the door open. Now, as though by instinct, the midshipmen seemed aware that the O.C., who to-day happened to be Lieutenant Cotton, U.S.N., was standing in front of the doorway gazing in.

Instantly the middies came to the position of attention, looking straight ahead of them.

"Good evening, gentlemen," greeted the O.C. "Is anything unusual going on?"

"We have been discussing the football situation, sir," announced Midshipman Hepson quite truthfully.

Had Hepson been asked if there had recently been a fight in progress he would have answered truthfully, but he did not feel called upon to volunteer damaging information.

"I thought I heard sounds as of some disturbance," remarked the O.C., looking at the young men rather sharply. "That is to say, I was under the impression that there had been some unusual agility in operation. I heard something that sounded like scuffling."

"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Hepson; "I think it very likely. The men on this deck, sir, can't think of anything in these days but line-ups and scrimmage tactics."

"It occurred to me," went on the O.C., "that there was some sound of scuffling in this room."

"There was, sir," admitted Midshipman Hepson candidly. "There was a species of scrimmage."

"Was it in connection with football?" inquired Lieutenant Cotton.

"Yes, sir,"—which answer, again, was wholly truthful.

"Ah, I thought I heard something like a scrimmage in the room," assented Lieutenant Cotton. "Yet remember, gentlemen, that quarters is not the place for football practice."

"Very good, sir; thank you, sir," replied the unmovable Hepson.

"And remember that it is now very close to the time for study call," continued the O.C.

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. We are just parting to our various quarters, sir."

"Good evening, gentlemen."

"Good evening, sir."

Lieutenant Cotton passed on down the corridor, and the midshipmen eased themselves from the rigid position of attention.

"That was a narrow squeak," grunted Hepson. "Now, Jetson, get out ahead."

"I'll renew this argument at another time," retorted Jetson slowly, as he crossed the floor.

"You don't need to, sir," Midshipman Hepson advised him. "Every gentleman here will agree with me that Mr. Dalzell had the best of the affair right up to the end. Nor is Mr. Dalzell under any obligation whatever to afford you another meeting on the score of to-night's disagreement."

"We'll see about that," snapped Jetson, as he passed through the doorway.

At that instant the study call sounded. The others hastened away to their quarters.

Dan Dalzell stepped over to the handbowl, washing his hands, after which he went to his study-table and began to arrange his books.

"It's kind of lonely to sit here without old Darry," sighed Dan dismally. "I hope he'll be here with me to-morrow evening. No; I don't either, though. I want him to stay over in hospital until there's no chance whatever that he'll have to wear an ugly scar through life."

It was three evenings later when Midshipman David Darrin returned to his own quarters in Bancroft Hall. By this time the surface wound on his face was healing nicely, and with ordinary care he would soon be without sign of scar.

"Pills (the surgeon) told me that I'll have to be careful and not let anything bump this face for days to come," remarked Dave, pointing to the strip of adhesive plaster that neatly covered his injury.

"Well, you don't need to bump anything," replied Dan quietly. "Hepson wants you on the gridiron the worst way, but he has told me that he won't even allow you to get into togs until Pills has certified that you're fit to play."

"It's tough," sighed Dave, then quietly began his studies.

It is a rare proceeding to send a midshipman to Coventry; a step that is never taken save for the gravest reasons. Dan, having fought, did not feel it necessary to bring Jetson's case before a class meeting, and Jetson escaped Coventry. He was not cut, yet he soon discovered that the average classmate paid no more heed to him than appeared to be necessary for courtesy's sake.

After another week "Pills" consented to Dave Darrin's going out for regular gridiron practice. Dave needed the work badly, for the Navy team was now on the eve of the first game of the season.

Jetson, with no hope now of making the eleven this year, avoided the field for a few days.

The first game of the season took place on a Saturday afternoon. The opponent was Hanniston College. Ordinarily, in the past, Hanniston had been an easy enough opponent, though there had been years in which Hanniston had carried the score away from the field.

"How many of the regular team do you want to throw into the game against Hanniston, Mr. Hepson?" inquired Lieutenant-Commander Havens the night before the game.

"Every one of them, sir," Hepson answered the head coach. "Until we get into a real game, we can't be sure that we've the strongest eleven. To-morrow's game will show us if we have made any mistakes in our selections."

Even though Hanniston was considered one of the lesser opponents, every man in the brigade speculated with great interest, that night, on the probable outcome of the morrow.

"Darrin will have a good chance to prove himself, a dub to-morrow," thought Midshipman Jetson darkly. "I hate to wish against the Navy, but I'll cheer if Darrin, individually, ties himself up in foozle knots!"



CHAPTER X

THE GRIDIRON START

On the day of the game the midshipmen talked eagerly, and mostly of football, through dinner in the great messhall of the brigade.

"Did any one see the Hanniston infants arrive?" demanded Page.

"Infants, eh!" called Joyce from the next table. "That shows you didn't see the visiting eleven."

"Why? Are they of fair size?" asked Farley.

"It took two 'buses to bring the regular eleven, besides the subs and all the howlers," retorted Joyce. "And the regular eleven, I am reliably informed, tip the scales at four tons."

"Oh, come, now, Joyce, shave off a ton or two," protested Farley.

"I won't take off more than fifty pounds, sir," retorted Joyce with mock stubbornness. "Say! The Hanniston fellows are enormous."

"Then they've run all to bones and haven't any brains," grinned Dan. "After all, we don't mind mere bulk, for intelligence wins most of the games on the gridiron."

"As to their intelligence, I can't say," admitted Joyce. "At any rate, from the glimpse that I got of the Hans, I should say that they average two years older than our men."

"Let's throw up the sponge, then," proposed Dalzell demurely. "If we can't beat the visitors what's the use of playing them? It isn't even necessary to get into togs. We can send a note to the referee, and he can award the game to Hanniston."

"Fine!" broke in Hepson scornfully.

"However, I guess we aren't going to have any cinch to-day," joined in Midshipman Waite, from another table. "I have word from outside, by the way."

"What word?"

"Well, the Hanniston fellows have brought over some money with which to back up the howls they're making for their team. They're offering odds of ten to six that Hanniston wins."

"They stand to lose a lot of money," grinned Hepson.

"But here's the funny part of it," continued Waite. "You know, when the townspeople in Annapolis think they have a really good thing on us, they cover the money of visitors in any wagers on the games."

"Then here's hoping that the Annapolis townspeople win a lot to-day," laughed Midshipman Hepson.

"Yes, but," returned Waite, "what I hear from town is that the Annapolis townspeople have been driven to cover; that they aren't taking up the offers of the visiting Hanniston boys."

"Too bad!" sighed Dave Darrin. "And Annapolis needs the money so badly, too."

"Are we going to win?" asked Waite bluntly.

"Too early to tell you," replied Hepson coolly. "Ask me at supper to-night. But the townies won't wager any money on us this year, eh?"

"The Annapolis people have put up some, but not much," replied Waite.

"We're going to win, just the same," announced Dan Dalzell.

"Sure?" questioned several voices.

"Oh, yes! It's all settled now," laughed Midshipman Waite. "I've been waiting for Danny boy to tell us. Now, we know—we've heard from the hot-air meter."

There was a laugh in which Dan didn't join readily, though his face reddened considerably. Midshipman Dalzell was one of those who always believed that the Navy must win, just because it was the Navy. Some of the other midshipmen didn't go quite as far as that in their confidence.

"Better not call Danny boy names," advised Dave Darrin gravely. "He might be sulking at just the time when we need him this afternoon."

"That would be unmilitary," retorted Mr. Waite.

"Oh, no," said Dave lightly. "Even as good a soldier as Achilles sulked in his tent, you know."

"Achilles? What class was he in, then?" demanded Waite. "I don't remember the name."

"He was in a class of his own, at the siege of Troy," volunteered Farley.

"Troy, N.Y.?" inquired Waite.

"If you keep on, Waite," muttered Farley, "someone will have to give you an ancient history book at Christmas. You don't seem well posted on Greek tales."

"Don't have to be, thank goodness," returned Waite, helping himself to another piece of beef. "Greek isn't on the list here."

There was abundant time for rest before the game. The players and subs, for the Navy team, however, were early at dressing quarters. Jetson hadn't been called as one of the subs., so he walked sulkily and alone through the grounds while most of the midshipmen strolled, about in groups.

Half an hour before the time for the game the spectators' seats held fair-sized crowds. At that time the Naval Academy Band began to play, just to keep the waiting ones more patient.

Ten minutes later the Hanniston players came on to the field at a slow trot. Instantly the Hanniston howlers in the audience began to whoop up the noise. The midshipmen joined in cheers, and then the band took up the music again.

At first sight of the visitors, some of the Navy people began to have their doubts about victory. The Hannistons surely were "bulky." In size and age, the visitors were as formidable as any of the college elevens.

Many of the midshipmen, too, recalled what they had heard Waite say at table. It seemed little wonder that the popular odds were against the middies.

But the band, having played its welcome to the Hannistons, who were now chasing a ball over the field in practice, almost immediately switched off into the strains of "See, the Conquering Hero Comes!"

All doubts were dispelled for the moment at least, as all the Navy people present let loose a tremendous cheer in which the midshipmen spectators led, for now Captain Hepson was leading his own men on to the field, the hope of the Navy that day.

"Hepson! Hepson!" went up rousingly from the brigade.

"Darrin! Darrin!" howled others.

"Dalzell!"

"Darrin! Darrin!"

"Hepson must enjoy hearing more noise for Darrin than for himself," reflected Jetson moodily.

But Hepson, big in body, heart and mind, was intent only on victory. It did not even occur to the captain of the Navy eleven that Darrin was getting more of a reception than himself. Hepson was simply and heartily glad to find himself supported by two such promising gridiron men as Darrin and Dalzell.

"Remember, Darry, how much we're backing on you to-day," muttered Hepson, after another round of yells for Dave had been given.

"I can't do everything, and perhaps not much," smiled Dave. "But I'll do my level best to do all that you call upon me for at my own little spot in the line."

A din of Hanniston yells was now smiting the air. Uncle Sam's midshipmen waited with patience and courtesy, but when their turn came they volleyed forth four times as much as the visiting howlers could supply.

"I hope Darry is in great form to-day," murmured the midshipman seated next to Jetson.

"He looks to be in as good shape as ever doesn't he?" asked Jetson sullenly.

"Oh, I forgot," exclaimed the other. "You don't like Darry any too well."

"I've nothing against him that would make me want to see him in bad form," grumbled Jetson. "I'm a Navy man and I don't want to see any but Navy victories."

The toss had just been made, the visitors winning the kick-off. At a sign from a Navy officer in the field the leader silenced his band and a hush fell over the gridiron and the seats of the onlookers.



CHAPTER XI

THE BAND COULDN'T MAKE ITSELF HEARD

Within five minutes the Hanniston players had established the fact that they were not only bulky, but quick and brainy. In fact, though the Navy promptly blocked the ball and got it, the middies were unable to make headway against the college men. Then Hanniston took the ball, fighting slowly but steadily toward the Navy goal line.

"I don't see Darrin making any wonderful plays," thought Jetson to himself. He was gloomy over seeing the Navy outplayed, but secretly glad that the spectators had as yet found no occasion to shout themselves hoarse over Midshipman Dave's work.

Outside of the brigade the other spectators in the Navy seats felt themselves tinder a cloud of increasing gloom.

"From all the talk I had expected more of Mr. Darrin," remarked an officer's wife-to her husband.

"Darrin has a fearful Hanniston line against him," replied the officer. "Captain Hepson realizes that, too, and he isn't pushing Darrin as hard as you might wish to see."

"We're going to be beaten, aren't we?" asked another Navy onlooker.

It was as yet too early to predict safely, though all the appearances were that the visitors would do whatever scoring was to be done to-day.

Yet, even when they felt themselves outclassed, the middies hung to their opponents with dogged perseverance. It took nearly all of the first half for the Hannistons to place the Navy goal in final, desperate danger.

Then, of a sudden, while the Hannistons worked within a dozen yards of the Navy goal line, the college boys made a new attack, the strongest they had yet shown.

There was a bumping crash as the lines came together, at the Navy's right. Farley and Page were swept clear off their feet and the assailants swept onward. Another clever attack, backed by a ruse, and one of the college boys started on a dead run with the ball. In vain the Navy's backs tried to stop him. The Hanniston boys successfully interfered for their runner, and the ball was touched down behind the goal line.

Gone were the cheers that had been ascending from the brigade. All the Navy crowd gasped in dismay. The ball was carried back, kicked, and Hanniston had scored six points.

"Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha—Hanniston! Wow!" went up derisively from the visiting howlers.

"Hepson! Hepson! Pull us out!" came the appeal.

"Darry! Darry! Rush it!"

As the two elevens were lining up for another start the time-keeper's whistle sounded the end of the first half of the game.

Gloomy, indeed, were those who had hoped to see the Navy win. There were no cheers, save from the visitor-howlers. The best that the leader of the band could do, was to swing his baton and start in the strains of "'Twas Never Thus in Olden Times."

"What do you make of the enemy, Hepson?" inquired Joyce, as the middies rested at the side lines.

"We haven't made anything of them yet, but we've got to make wrecks of 'em before the last half is over," grunted the captain of the Navy.

"How are we going to do it?" asked another player.

"By just hanging at them with sheer grit," replied the captain gravely. "Fellows, they've beaten us so far, but they haven't worn us out any. Big fellows as the Hannistons are, they may not have the endurance to hang to us through all of the coming half."

"That makes me remember a song I heard when on leave this year," grinned Page. "A part of it runs:

'Said the ant to the elephant, "Who are ye shoving? There's one wide river to cross!"'

"And we're the elephants?" inquired Farley in mock innocence.

"Do we look it?" demanded Page in disgust.

"Remember, fellows," warned Hepson, as the signal summoned both teams back to the field, "many a hopeless game has been won in the last five minutes. But don't wait. Hammer the college boys from the start!"

"Dalzell and I can stand hard work and pounding whenever you get ready to put it on us," Dave announced to Hepson. "Don't try to spare us any. Both of us would sooner be carried away on stretchers than see the Navy lose its first game to a minor college."

The game was resumed. For ten minutes the Navy played mainly on the defensive. Indeed, to the spectators it seemed all that the middies could do against such big fellows as the visitors.

Just after that, however, Hepson passed the silent signal, and then the midshipmen hurled themselves into the fray to test out all the endurance that the Hanniston players might possess.

Many a college boy on the opposing line wondered where these smaller men in the Navy togs had obtained all the fight that they now showed. The big fellows didn't seem able to stand it long. The Navy had the ball, and now slowly fought down toward the college goal. Onlookers in the Navy seats began to stand up, to watch breathlessly, and be ever ready to cheer.

"Hurl little Darry in!" yelled someone hoarsely in a momentary lull in the noise.

But Hepson, watching every chance with tigerish eyes, was yet cool-headed, as a football general should be. Twice he used Darrin to advance the ball, and each time Dave gained a few yards. The third time, wearied by pounding his head against a human stone wall, Dave failed to gain more than half a yard. Watchful Hepson sent the ball, after the next snap-back, over to the Navy's right.

The time of the second half was slipping away, and it now looked as though the middies might gradually have won by the steady, bull-dog quality of their tactics.

Nearer and nearer to the college goal line the team of smaller men fought the pigskin, until at last they had it within six yards of the Hanniston fortress. But at this point the visitors stayed further progress long enough to have the pigskin ovoid come to them by a block.

The situation was desperate. Hanniston could not get the ball away from its present locality, and in dread the college captain sent the ball back of his own line to a safety.

This counted two for Annapolis, but it also set the ball back twenty-five yards from the college line.

"Block! block! block—if you can't fight the ball back to the Navy goal," was the word that Captain Hart, of the college team, sent along his own line. "Don't be too reckless. Just fight to keep the Navy from scoring."

"Hepson! Hepson!" came, appealingly, from the seats, as the two elevens lined up at the twenty-five-yard line.

"Darry! O Darry!"

Grim determination written on their faces, eleven middies awaited the signal, then hurled themselves forward like tigers.

The ball came to Dave, who started with it. Dan Dalzell, watching his chum with cat-like eyes, followed and made the best interference that he had offered that day.

Five and a half yards won!

As center bent for the snap back, a "fake" signal was called by the Navy quarter-back.

Just as the ball started, the Navy players back of the line started toward the right The Hanniston men, tired now, but full of grit as ever, moved to block. The Navy gained a second or two, for the pass was really to the left, and again Darrin had the pigskin clutched tightly as he started to ran and deceive. Again Dan and the others of the interference sustained their idol and champion. Dave went soon to earth, but he had forced the ball another six yards!

"Darry—oh, Darry!"

"One more play and over the line!"

"You've got the elephants going at last."

"Rush 'em!"

"A touchdown saves us!"

Dan's face was flushed, Dave's white and set as the line again formed for the next play.

Quarter-back Joyce held up his head, watching the field like a mouse seeking escape.

Then came the emergency signal: "Nine—fourteen—twenty-two—three!"

Back came the pigskin while the middies seemed to throw their bodies toward the right. It looked as though they were trying to mask this feint.

The ball was in motion. But Dave had it, instead of Farley. Instantly the Navy swung its entire line toward the left, for this was the grand rush, the die on which everything was cast!

Dave was darting forward, and never had his interference backed him better.

Before Midshipman Darrin stood one of the big college men, who looked fully equal to stopping the midshipman anywhere and at any time.

Nor did Darrin try to dodge this bulky player. Instead, Dave, as he hurled himself at the opponent, sprang high into the air, as though he had some desperate plan of leaping over the barrier.

Braced on his legs, his two feet solidly planted, this Hanniston man felt ready for any shock that Dave Darrin could bring against him.

But Darrin did not touch him. On the contrary, the Navy's hope fell to the ground, just short of the blocking opponent.

Like a flash Dave went between that pair of solidly braced, wide-spread legs. In a wriggle that looked flash-like to the breathless beholders, Darrin was through. He had taken desperate chances, when he went down, of being beset, end forced to hold the pigskin where he had fallen.

But now Dave was up and running, and the player who had sought to block him was far in the rear.

The whole Navy force hurled itself around this point, battering down the startled opposition. With fast-coming breath Dave's comrades pushed him along breaking down all opposition—until Dave, with a sudden, wild dash, was over the line for a touchdown.

"Darry did it! Darry did it!"

For fifteen seconds the uproar was deafening. The college players looked stunned, while their howlers, over on the visitors' seats, seemed to shrink within their coats.

"Seven to six!"

"Make it eight!"

Dave Darrin had borne the brunt of battle. Now his eyes were flashing with excitement.

"I'd like you to try the kick for goal, Darry, but I don't know," called Hepson in his ear. "You may be about used up."

"Let me have the kick. I'm not afraid," Dave half boasted, for now he could think of nothing but victory.

"All right. Take it," agreed Hepson.

Dave Darrin did take the kick. Never had he made a better one. The ball went straight and true between the goal-posts.

The band-leader held his baton poised, but the Navy spectators broke into such a riot of joy that he let the baton fall inertly.

"What's the use?" he asked the musicians.

Again the players lined up, with the Navy; score eight to six.

Ten seconds later, the whistle blew, announcing the end of the game.



CHAPTER XII

JOYCE IS BITTEN BY THE TROUBLE BUG

The game was over. The giant visitors had departed, and the Naval Academy atmosphere appeared to be rarefied.

Most of the members of the brigade were back in Bancroft Hall, and this being late Saturday afternoon, study was over save for those who felt the need of devoting extra time to their books.

Farley, Page and Joyce had dropped into the room occupied by Dave and Dan.

"Hepson was nearly crazy this afternoon," remarked Joyce, laughing.

"Then he had an easy way of concealing the fact," Dave replied. "I call him a cool football captain, with plenty of judgment and patience."

"Yes; but I happen to know that he was badly upset," returned Joyce. "Twice he sent me the wrong signal about the numbers to call, and he admitted it afterward. He was afraid, before the game was twenty minutes' old, that we were up against a big walloping."

"Oh, well," Darrin replied, with a shrug of his shoulders, "the Navy is just as used as the Army is to being walloped in athletics. The trouble with the Army and Navy teams, in athletics, is that we're always pitted against college men who are bigger and older than we are. It's just about as unfair to us, as it would be unfair to High School teams if we played against High Schools instead of colleges. We could wallop High School outfits at either baseball or football, and the only wonder is that the Army and Navy win as many games as they do against the colleges. College teams have more time for training than the Army or Navy teams do."

"What are you going to do to-night, Darry?" Joyce asked presently. "The hop?"

"No," Dave answered almost shortly. The truth was that he was no "hop-fiend" or "fusser." Except when Belle Meade was at Annapolis to go to a hop with him, Darrin had little liking for the ball.

"I don't intend to hop either," Joyce continued. "Now, are you well enough up in grease to get town leave for the evening?"

"Grease" means good standing on the conduct report.

"Yes," nodded Dave. "Danny and I could easily get town leave, if we had a good excuse. But, of course, it's out of the question to get leave merely to roam the streets. We'd have to explain where we were going, and then go there."

"There's a show on at the theatre," broke in Dalzell.

"Yes," nodded Dave. "But do you know what kind of show it is?"

"No."

"It's a burlesque show, brought here to win away the half dollars of the sailors on the ships here. We'd stand very little chance of getting leave to go to that kind of show."

"But I want to go somewhere, away from the Academy grounds, just for a couple of hours," sighed Joyce.

"I'd like to go also," agreed Dave. "But where could we go? That is, to what place or for what purpose could we go that would be approved by the O.C.?"

This proved to be a poser indeed.

"Fact is," Joyce went on, "I'm so desperate for a little change that I don't believe I'd funk at taking French over the Academy wall. What do you two say?"

"That dog won't bark," Dave retorted.

"Oh, you greaser!" Joyce shied at him.

"Well, I am greasing to the extent that I won't imperil my chances of keeping in the service by taking any French leave," Darrin replied steadily. "So, Joyce, I'm afraid a trip to town to-night is out of the question, unless you can think up some plan to get by the O.C."

"How are you on Frenching the wall, Danny boy?" queried Joyce.

"Just about as big a muff as Darry," Dan returned dryly.

Joyce remained for some moments in deep meditation. He wanted to go into Annapolis, and he didn't care about going on a lonesome expedition. The more he thought the better Joyce realized how hard it was to frame a request that would get past the O.C.

"I have it," spoke up Dalzell at last. "We'll ask leave to run up to Baltimore to consult an oculist."

"You idiot!" cried Joyce impatiently. None of us need spectacles."

"Besides, there's no train running to Baltimore as late as this," added Dave.

"No good, then," sighed Dalzell, "and my inventiveness is gone."

"I'm afraid we'll have to French it over the wall," insisted Joyce.

"You'll French it alone, then," Dave declared. "I draw the line at leaving the grounds without official permission."

"Prig!" grunted Joyce under his breath. Then he started up, his eyes shining with the light of a new resolve.

"Got an idea?" asked Dan.

"Yes," said Joyce. "And you'll call me a fool if I let you in on it now. Wait until I see how it works."

With that he hastened from the room. Darrin drew down a book from the bookshelf, and from between its pages extracted a letter from Belle, which he began to read for the dozenth time.

A few minutes passed. Then Joyce knocked, next entered the room with jubilation apparent in his face.

"I've fixed it," he cried. "All you fellows have to do is to go to the O.C. and make your request in person."

"Request for what?" Dave asked, looking up as he folded the letter.

"I told the O.C., plumply, that we were so tired of being on this side of the wall that we felt desperate for a change. I reminded him that we are all three in the top grease grade, and told him that we wanted permission to take a short stroll through Annapolis to-night. O.C. hemmed and hawed, and said it was a most unusual request for the evening, though proper enough for Saturday afternoon. At last he called up the commandant of midshipmen, stated the case and asked if he might grant the permission. The com. was game and said all right. So all that remains is for you two to go to the O.C. and make your request in person. Scat! Get in motion! Start! I'll wait here until I hear that you've put it through."

"Of course, Joyce, you're not putting up a joke on us?" demanded Darrin, looking keenly at the Navy quarter-back.

"On my word I'm not."

"Come on, Danny boy," called Dave, starting, and Dalzell followed readily enough. They entered the office of the O. C., saluted and stated their case.

"It is, of course, a somewhat unusual request to grant for the evening," replied Lieutenant-Commander Denham. "However, I can grant it if you will both assure me that you will take extreme pains to keep out of trouble of any kind, and that you will not enter the theatre or any other resort that would be bad judgment for a midshipman to enter."

"As to that, sir," Darrin replied, "I long ago resolved not to take any chances whatever of breaking any disciplinary requirements that would bring me demerits. I am working hard to get through the academic requirements, sir, and I don't intend to pass the mental ordeals here and then find that I can't keep on as a midshipman just because I have too many demerits against me. I think, sir, you may feel assured I shall not allow myself to do anything that would bring me under discipline."

"Your resolution was and is a most excellent one, Mr. Darrin," replied the O.C. "Mr. Dalzell, do you share Mr. Darrin's determination as to keeping out of trouble in Annapolis this evening?"

"Emphatically, sir."

"Then the desired permission is granted. You will enter proper report as to the time of leaving and returning."

Thanking the O.C. and saluting, Dave and Dan hastened back to Joyce.

"Not so difficult, was it?" demanded the Navy quarter-back.

"It was a whole lot better than planning to French the trip," retorted Darrin. "Now, we shall leave here to-night feeling perfectly safe as to our place on the pap."

"Pap" is the sheet on which the day's report of midshipmen conduct is kept.

"I'll admit that caution is sometimes worth while," laughed Joyce.

Soon after the call for supper formation sounded. The meal hour was a merry one that evening. The afternoon's game was naturally the main subject for conversation.

Dave naturally came in for much praise for the way he had saved the Navy game, but this flattery bored him. Darrin did not in the least imagine that he was a wonder on the gridiron. In fact, the game being past and won, he did not take any further interest in it. Such thought as he now gave to football concerned the games still to come.

Immediately after the meal the three midshipmen reported their departure into Annapolis. Then they went to the main gate, passed through and strolled on up Maryland Avenue into State Circle.

"I'm sorry we promised not to go to the theatre," murmured Midshipman Joyce.

"I'm not," retorted Dave. "Without that promise we wouldn't have secured the leave."

"But what are we going to do," demanded the dissatisfied one, "now that we are outside the grounds?"

"We can't do much, except what we came out to do," Dave reminded Joyce. "We can just walk about and stretch our legs, look in at a few store windows and make a few trifling purchases that won't exhaust our small store of pocket money."

"Exciting prospect!" remarked Joyce.

"Well, what ails you?" demanded Dalzell with unusual quietness. "What do you want to do? Something that will get us into big trouble with the O.C. and the com.?"

"Joyce can't tell you what he longs for, for he doesn't know himself," explained Dave.

"But I know. He wants to do something irregular; anything that is slightly in breach of the regulations—something that will get him hauled up before the O.C. and the pap."

"You're a wonderful guesser," laughed Joyce. "Well, I'll admit that I'm simply restless, and that anything that will stir my blood and my liver will fill the bill. I'm afraid I'm so depraved to-night that even a street-fight wouldn't go against the grain."

"You'd better forget it," advised Darrin quietly. "It's a dangerous frame of mind for a future officer and gentleman, who must acquire control over himself before he can be fit to command men."

"You talk like a padre!" (chaplain) uttered Joyce in disgust "Can't you forget, for one evening, that you're a midshipman?"

"No; I don't want to," Dave returned quietly.

"Prig!" uttered Joyce again, and this time he did not take the pains to speak under his breath. But Darrin only smiled indulgently.

By way of simple dissipation the three midshipmen went to a drug store, enjoying themselves with ice cream sodas. Soon after they found themselves in a Main Street bookstore, looking over post cards. They could, however, find no new ones, and so left without buying.

"And there's the theatre right over there!" sighed Joyce.

"It would be against our word as midshipmen and gentlemen to visit it," Dave urged. "Come on, Joyce; we'll turn into one of the very quiet side streets and stroll along. Then we'll be out of temptation."

Accordingly they went to one of the all but deserted side streets of the better sort.

"There's a comrade ahead of us," said Dave in an undertone presently, as he made out the uniform half a block away.

Hardly had he spoken when a door opened and a young man in evening clothes came lightly down the steps. At once the unknown midshipman wheeled and sprang at the young civilian. There was a swift interchange of blows, over almost as soon as it started, for the unknown midshipman speedily knocked down the man he had assaulted. Nor did the civilian get up at once. Instead, he bawled lustily for help.

Joyce made a move to spring forward, but Dave caught him by the arm.

"Don't get forward, Joyce. If you do, you'll probably recognize the midshipman. Then you'll have to report his name."

Answering the calls for help five other young men ran out of the same house. The midshipman disdained to flee and stood his ground.

"We'll teach you!" snarled one of the newly arrived civilians, raising his cane as though to bring it down on the midshipman's shoulders.

The midshipman, like a flash, wrenched the cane from the other's hands and began to lay it lustily about him. The whole crowd, therefore, including the young man who had first been knocked down, joined in the attack.

"That's too much like cowardice, and we're bound to go to the rescue of a comrade!" muttered Dave Darrin, his eyes blazing. "Come on, fellows—and be sure not to recognize that comrade!"

In a moment the fight was somewhat more equal. Darrin, Dalzell and Joyce were all accomplished and disciplined boxers. They closed with the crowd around the midshipman.

Crack! thump! bump! Midshipman blows landed heavily and rapidly. The civilians were soon worsted and scattered.

"Whoever you are, comrade," muttered Dave in a low tone, wheeling the unknown midshipman around, "don't look our way and don't give us any chance to recognize you. Scoot!"

"Po-o-o-lice!" lustily yelled one of the crowd of defeated civilians.



CHAPTER XIII

HEPSON IS "SOME WILD"

"Police!" bawled others of the civilians, taking up the hue and cry.

That spelled serious trouble if Dave and his friends should tarry there. Midshipmen are in no sense free from arrest by the civil authorities, and it is likely to fare hard with Uncle Sam's young sailors if they are taken in by the civil authorities.

"Come along," muttered Darrin, leading the way. He did not run, but he certainly walked fast, and in a direction away from Main Street. His two companions followed him. The "unknown midshipman," taking Darrin's shrewd hint, had already made himself invisible.

After the prompt drubbing they had received, not one of the young civilians felt any desire to follow these husky midshipmen.

The police in Annapolis are few in number, and so do not always hear a street summons. In this instance Dave and his friends turned a corner and were soon away from the scene of the late affair.

"Now, I hope you've had all the excitement you want, Joyce," Dave remarked dryly.

"Like most good things, it didn't last long," complained Joyce.

"Oh, it isn't over yet, by any means. We've the O.C. and the com. to face," grumbled Darrin. "But we couldn't stand by and see one of our own punched by a whole gang."

"Of course we couldn't, but why fuss about the com, and his satellite, the O.C.? They'll never hear of this."

"I think there's a big chance that we shall hear of it," retorted Dave. "That's why I advised you not to look at the unknown midshipman closely enough to be able to recognize him in the dark."

"I don't know who he was," admitted Dan candidly.

"Nor do I," supplemented Joyce.

"Then, whoever he is, the chap stands little chance of being caught unless he voluntarily announces himself."

Presumably the police didn't answer the hail of the young civilians. At any rate, Darrin and his friends heard nothing more of the matter while in town.

But when they returned to Bancroft Hall the trio were met by this announcement:

"The officer in charge wishes to see you in his office."

"It's coming," warned Dave, as he and his companions turned and went in to report themselves.

"There has been a disturbance in Annapolis," stated Lieutenant-Commander Denham. "Mr. Darrin, were you in it?"

"I was in one kind of disturbance, sir," Darrin answered at once.

"Of what kind?"

"Several civilians attacked a man in a midshipman's uniform. I went to his aid."

"And attacked some civilians?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Dalzell, Mr. Joyce, did you also take part in that affair?" inquired the O.C.

"Yes, sir," answered both midshipmen.

"For what reason?"

"Because, sir," answered Joyce, "several civilians pounced upon one man who wore a midshipman's uniform."

"And you three rushed in and pounded some civilians?" asked the O.C. coolly.

"I'm afraid we did, sir," answered Dave, who found the lieutenant-commander's gaze turned on him.

"Who was that other midshipman, Mr. Darrin?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Didn't you recognize him when you went to his aid?"

"I did not, sir."

"Did either of you gentlemen recognize the midshipman to whose rescue you rushed?"

Dan and Joyce replied in the negative.

"Tell me the circumstances of the attack, Mr. Darrin. Take pains to make your statement so exact that you will not have to amend the statement afterwards."

Darrin told the affair as it had happened.

"Hm! And none of you recognized the fourth midshipman?" pursued the O.C. "That, in itself, was strange, Mr. Darrin, was there any agreement among you three that you would not recognize your comrade?"

"Not exactly an agreement, sir," Dave confessed candidly. "At the distance that we were from the scene before we rushed in the darkness prevented our seeing the face of the unknown midshipman. As we started forward, I will admit that I warned Mr. Dalzell and Mr. Joyce not to look at the other midshipman's face."

"So that you might answer truthfully, if asked, that you did not know the man?"

"Yes, sir; that was my reason for so advising Mr. Dalzell and Mr. Joyce."

"That was what might be termed extraordinary foresight, Mr. Darrin," remarked Lieutenant-Commander Denham ironically.

"Thank you, sir," answered Dave as innocently as though he did not understand that he had just been rebuked. The O.C. frowned.

"Mr. Darrin, since I assume you to have been the ringleader of your trio, did you give that wonderful advice to your companions just so that you might be able to refuse any aid to the Naval Academy authorities in running this matter to the ground?"

"Yes, sir," Dave answered very frankly.

"You wished, then," demanded the O.C. sternly, "to hinder the course of justice at the Naval Academy?"

"It, at least, sir, did not strike me at the time quite in that light."

"Yet something was happening on the streets of Annapolis that you knew would be very thoroughly investigated if it were reported here, and so you took precautions against being able to aid the authorities in the investigation?"

"I admit the truth of that, sir."

"Mr. Darrin, why did you feel called upon to try to defeat the investigation that you foresaw, and which is now under way?"

"Because, sir, it is contrary to the spirit of the brigade of midshipmen to carry tales against each other. I did not care to act contrary to that spirit."

"Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that you did not dare," observed the O.C. half sneeringly.

"That way of stating it would be true, sir. I do not care to turn informer against my comrades."

"Yet you think you possess the courage to become one of our fighting officers in the future, if the need arises?

"Of my courage as a fighting man, sir, I am unable to form any opinion until that courage has been properly tested."

"But you are afraid to inform the authorities of the identity of comrades who commit serious offenses?"

"As it is contrary to the spirit of the brigade, sir, I would be more afraid of my own contempt than of any other punishment."

Lieutenant-Commander Denham appeared to lose some of his patience presently.

"I wonder," he remarked brusquely, "why you midshipmen cannot learn to accept some of your sense of honor from the officers who have seen so much more service than you. I wonder why you will go on formulating your own canons of honor, even when such beliefs sometimes result in the dismissal of midshipmen from the service."

The three midshipmen, not being questioned, remained silent.

"And so not one of you has the slightest idea of the original nature of the quarrel in which you so readily took part? And none of you has any idea of the identity of the fourth midshipman concerned in this evening's work?"

"I have not, sir," replied Midshipmen Darrin, Dalzell and Joyce in one breath.

"Very good, gentlemen. The matter will be investigated further. You will go to your quarters and remain there. You will take part in the meal formations, but in no drills or recitations until you are further advised. And you will not leave Bancroft Hall without direct orders from competent authority."

The three midshipmen saluted, turned and left the office, going to their own rooms.

"Wow!" muttered Dan as soon as the chums had closed their door on themselves.

"We shall surely have enough to think of," smiled Dave wearily.

"Oh, aye!" agreed Dalzell.

"Oh, well, if we're going to skip some recitations we'll need all the more study," sighed Dave, seating himself at his study table and drawing his books toward him.

But he was not permitted to study long in peace. Word of the affair had spread, and Hepson presented himself at Darrin's quarters in great consternation.

"Great!" mocked Hepson. "Just when we've discovered that the Navy has a dub team without you two, or next door to one, then you two go and get ordered to quarters. You'll not turn out with us Monday; you may not practice with us through the week or play in our next game. Fine!"

"Perhaps," grinned Dan, "if we two are so important to Navy prestige as you appear to imagine, we shall not be kept long from the gridiron."

"Dalzell," retorted Hepson impatiently, "you're a second classman, and you've been here long enough to know that no considerations of discipline will be made to stand aside in order that the Navy may have a better athletic team of any kind. Nothing here is sacrificed to athletics, and you surely must know it."

"Then I guess we're dished," confessed Dalzell mournfully.

"A fine way for you two to go and use the football squad! Great!" insisted Hepson bitterly.

"Had you been with us, Hepson, you'd have done just as we did. I know that," Dave replied.

"Well, you are calling me a bit," agreed Hepson. "After all, I don't know just what it was that got you both into this scrape. Some kind of fight, or row, in town, was all I heard."

"Then I'll tell you about it," Darrin went on quietly.

"Well, I really don't see how you could have helped it," agreed Midshipman Hepson after he had listened. "But that doesn't save us any. We're out our two best line players and our quarter-back."

"Oh, we'll be restored to the squad as soon as the sentence has been pronounced," predicted Dan Dalzell.

"Even if you're bounced out of the Naval Academy?" demanded Hepson savagely.

"It—it won't be as bad as that," faltered Dan.

"Perhaps not," agreed Hepson, "though you must understand that the charge of assaulting civilians is not a light matter. You can be dismissed for it, you know."

"Yes," nodded Dave Darrin, and then Danny boy went several shades less ruddy.

"Here's hoping for the best," grumbled Hepson, holding out his hand to each in turn. "And, for the love of Mike, keep out of all further trouble! Don't look cross-eyed—once—until after November!"



CHAPTER XIV

TWO SIDES OF A STORY

One circumstance puzzled all of the midshipmen who first heard of the affair. The fourth, and unknown, midshipman, who had waited outside of the house and assaulted the first civilian, must have known the latter or it was not likely that he would have committed the assault. That being the case, it was just likely that the civilian knew and had recognized the unknown midshipman who had knocked him down. Such an attack must have followed some prior dispute.

Then, since the civilians had undoubtedly made complaint to the Naval Academy authorities, how had they been able to get out of supplying the name of the midshipman unknown to Dave and his friends?

Right after breakfast the next morning Dave Darrin and his friends of the evening before were summoned before the commandant of midshipmen. By that officer they were questioned very rigidly, but they had nothing to add to their statement of the night before. They were therefore ordered back to their quarters, with permission only to attend chapel that forenoon.

Just after chapel, however, the fourth midshipman discovered himself to the officer in charge. He was Midshipman Totten, of fourth class.

Totten admitted that it was he who had waited outside of the house in question, and who had knocked down the civilian. He further gave the name of that civilian, who was the son of one of the prominent officials of the state government.

"Why did you strike him, Mr. Totten?" demanded the officer in charge.

"Because, sir, the fellow had grossly insulted a young lady whom I felt bound to avenge."

"Who is the young lady?"

"Am I obliged, sir, to give her name in the matter?"

"It will be better, Mr. Totten. You may be sure that your statement will be treated with all the consideration and confidence possible."

Totten thereupon explained that the young woman in question was his cousin. Totten, who was an orphan, had been brought up by an aunt who had but one child of her own, the young woman in question. When Totten had won an appointment to the Naval Academy, the aunt and cousin had decided to move to Annapolis sooner than have their little family broken up.

"How did you come to be outside the Academy grounds last evening, Mr. Totten? You were not on leave to go outside."

"I took the chances and Frenched it, sir," confessed Totten candidly. "I knew that I could not get leave, and so did not ask it. But I felt that the fellow had to be punished, no matter at what hazard to myself."

"Then you considered the avenging of the insult to your cousin as being a matter of greater importance than your future career in the Navy?"

Midshipman Totten paled, but he answered bravely:

"Yes, sir; and at the same time a Naval career means nearly everything in the world to me."

Lieutenant-Commander Morrill, the new officer in charge, felt that it was difficult to rebuke a future Naval officer for defending from insult a woman dear to him.

"I shall have to pass this matter on to the commandant of midshipmen," decided the O.C. "Mr. Totten, you will go to your quarters and remain there, until further orders, save only for meal formations."

"Very good, sir," replied the fourth classman saluting.

"That is all, Mr. Totten."

"Very good, sir."

Within half an hour, Dave, Dan and Joyce knew that the unknown midshipman had come forward and announced himself, but they did not hear the story of the reason back of Totten's attack. They heard, however, that Totten had not heard of their predicament until just after chapel call.

The commandant of midshipmen sent for Mr. Totten. That official, however, after hearing the story, felt that the matter was one for the superintendent. The superintendent did not send for Totten and question him, but sent, instead, for the civilians who had lodged the complaint the evening before. He sent also for young Crane the man Totten had named, and who had not been among the complainants of the evening before.

"Mr. Crane," announced the superintendent, "you know, of course, the name of the midshipman who assaulted and knocked you down before the other three midshipmen interfered in the matter?"

"Er—er—possibly I do," confessed Crane, reddening.

"Mr. Crane, if you wish us to deal frankly with you, you must accord the same treatment to the officials of the Naval Academy," replied the superintendent coldly.

"I—I—personally do not desire to press any complaint," continued young Crane. "I am sorry that my friends took such a step."

"Then you consider, Mr. Crane," pressed the superintendent, "that the knock-down blow you received from a midshipman was in the nature of a merited punishment?"

"I—I won't say that," cried Crane quickly. "No, sir! I won't admit it!"

"Then, as we know that Midshipman Totten was your assailant," continued the superintendent, "we shall have to place that young man on trial. We shall be obliged to summon you as a witness at that trial, Mr. Crane."

"But I have no intention, sir, of appearing as a witness," blustered that young man.

"Mr. Crane, you can have no choice in the matter. If we summon you, you can be brought here from any part of the United States."

"I—I—can't the matter be dropped, sir?" urged the young man anxiously.

"Not unless you confess yourself in the wrong, and exonerate Mr. Totten. In any other event the case will have to come to trial before a court-martial, and you, Mr. Crane, since we are certain that you possess material evidence, will be forced to appear as a witness."

Mr. Crane looked almost as uncomfortable as he felt.

"Mr. Totten," continued the superintendent, "states that you grossly insulted his cousin, a young woman, and that he met you on purpose to avenge that insult."

"There—there—was some trouble about a young woman," admitted Crane. "But I am a gentleman, sir."

"I am not expected to decide the last question that you have raised," replied the superintendent dryly. "All that concerns me in the matter is whether you exonerate Mr. Totten, or whether you do not. If you do not, the midshipman must state his case fully before a court-martial, at which you will be one of the important witnesses."

"I exonerate Mr. Totten," replied Crane in a very low tone.

"Do you exonerate him completely?" "Ye-es, sir."

"Then Mr. Totten's offense will be reduced to one or two-simple breaches of discipline," went on the superintendent.

"But see here, sir," interposed one of the other young men, "are your midshipmen to be allowed to go about pounding whom they like? Are they to be swashbucklers and bullies?"

"Very decidedly not, sir," replied the superintendent in a voice almost thunderous. "The midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy must conduct themselves as gentlemen at all times."

"Did they do that," urged the last speaker, "when they sailed into us as they did?"

"Why did your friends go to the assistance of Mr. Crane?" asked the superintendent.

"Be—because," stammered the spokesman, "your midshipman had knocked Crane down and was misusing him."

"Did you, the friends of Mr. Crane, consider it the act of gentlemen for several to rush in and attack one man?"

That left the callers rather breathless.

"Now, as to our other three midshipmen," pursued the superintendent, "at most they only rushed in to see fair play. They did not make a hostile move until they saw a whole crowd of you attacking one midshipman. Gentlemen, I am quite ready to leave it to a jury of any intelligent citizens as to whether the offending midshipmen or yourselves displayed the more gallantry and honor. For you have all admitted doing something that is not consistent with the highest standards of a gentleman, while our accused midshipmen have no such reproach against them."

"Then your midshipmen are to get off, and to be encouraged to repeat such conduct?" demanded the spokesman of the Crane party.

"No. On the contrary, they will be punished for whatever breaches of Naval discipline they have committed. Considering what you gentlemen have admitted, however, I do not believe you would have any standing as witnesses before a court-martial. I therefore advise you all to drop your complaint. Yet if you insist on a complaint, then I will see to it that Midshipman Totten is brought to trial."

Crane and his associates felt, very quickly and keenly, that they would cut but sorry figures in such a trial. They therefore begged to withdraw their former complaint. When they had departed the superintendent smiled at his reflection in the glass opposite.

Before supper all of the midshipmen involved knew their fate. They were restored to full liberty. Darrin, Dalzell and Joyce were again rebuked for having taken such elaborate pains to escape recognizing Totten at the time of the encounter. Beyond the lecture by the commandant of midshipmen, each of the trio was further punished by the imposition of ten demerits.

In Frenching and in taking justice into his own hands Midshipman Totten was held to have erred. However, the nature of his grievance and the fact that he was only a new fourth classman were taken into consideration. For Frenching he was punished with twenty-five demerits; for the assault on a civilian, considering all the circumstances, he was let off with ten additional demerits.

Yet, somehow, all of the midshipmen involved felt their punishment very lightly. They could not escape the conviction that the Naval Academy authorities did not regard them as especially guilty offenders.

"We've got you back on the gridiron, at any rate," exclaimed Hepson exultantly. "We of the football squad wish that we might be permitted to divide your demerits up among ourselves."

"You might suggest that little point to the commandant of midshipmen," grinned Dan.

"And get jolly well trounced for our impudence," grimaced Midshipman Hepson. "No, thank you; though you criminals have our utmost sympathy, we will let matters rest where they are at present. Only a fool tries to change well enough into worse."



CHAPTER XV

THE NAVY GOAT WEEPS

"Did you hear that Ella had a bad tumble down three stories?" asked Midshipman Dan.

"Ella who?" questioned Dave, looking up.

"Elevator!" grinned Dalzell.

"Ugh!" grunted Dave disgustedly. "Say, do you know how that would strike the com.?"

"No," replied Dan innocently, looking away. "How would it strike him?"

"Hard!" Dave responded. Slam! The somewhat heavy book that Darrin, aimed went straight to the mark, landing against Dan's nearer ear with all the force of a sound boxing.

"I see you appreciate a good joke," muttered Dalzell grimly.

"Yes," Dave admitted. "Do you?"

"When I tell you another," growled Dan, "I'll be holding an axe hidden behind my back."

"Say, did I show you that letter of Dick's?" Dave asked, looking up presently.

"Appendix?" inquired Dan suspiciously.

"Oh, stow all that, little boy!" retorted Dave. "No; did I tell you that I had a letter from Dick Prescott?"

"I think you mentioned something of the sort, last winter," Dalzell admitted still suspicious.

"No; I got one this morning from good old Dick," Darrin went on.

"All right," Dan agreed. "What's the answer?"

"I haven't had time to read it yet," Darrin responded. "But here's the letter. Maybe you'd like to look it over."

Across the study table Dan Dalzell received the envelope and its enclosure rather gingerly. Dan didn't like to be caught "biting" at a "sell," and he still expected some trick from his roommate.

It was, however, a letter written in Dick Prescott's well-remembered handwriting.

"I understand that you are both on the Navy team, and that you made good in the first game," wrote the West Point cadet. "I hope you'll both stay in to the finish, and improve with every game. Greg and I are plugging hard at the game in the little time that the West Point routine allows us for practice. From what I have heard of your game, I think it likely that you and good, but impish old Dan, are playing against the very position that Greg and I hope to hold in the annual Army-Navy game. Won't it be great?"

"Yes, it will be great, all right, if the Navy contrives to win," Dan muttered, looking up at his chum.

"Either the Army or Navy must lose," replied Dave quietly.

"And just think!" Cadet Dick Prescott's letter ran on. "When we meet, lined up for battle on Franklin Field, Philadelphia, it will be the first time we four have met since we wound up the good old High School days at Gridley. It seems an age to Greg and me. I wonder if the time seems as long to you two?"

"It seems to me," remarked Dan, glancing across at his chum, "that you and I, David, little giant, have been here at Annapolis almost ever since we first donned trousers to please the family."

"It is a long time back to Gridley days," assented Darrin.

Then Dan went on reading.

"Of course you and Dan are bound that the Navy shall win this year," Dick had written. "As for Greg and me, we are equally determined that the Army shall win. As if the resolutions on either side had much of anything to do with it! It will seem strange for us four, divided between the two sides, to be fighting frantically for the victory. However, if Greg and I go up against you two on the gridiron we won't show you any mercy, and we know that we shall receive none from you. Each man must do all that's possibly in him for the glory of his own side of the United Service! Here's to the better eleven—Army or Navy!"

"I'll bet Dick and Greg will give us all the tussle they know how, if they get near us in the fight," nodded Dan, passing the letter back.

"Well, they're bound to, aren't they?" demanded Darrin. "And now, Danny boy, we simply must stow all gab and get busy with our lessons. We've a recitation between now and the afternoon practice."

"And the game, to-morrow!" breathed Midshipman Dalzell fervently.

The morrow's game was to be against the University of Pennsylvania eleven. The opposition team being an unusually good one that year, the Navy's gridiron pets were preparing to strain every nerve in the hope of victory.

In that afternoon's practice Dave and Dan showed up better than ever. Farley and Page, too, were coming along splendidly, while Midshipman Joyce was proving himself all but a joy to exacting Hepson.

But when the morrow came U.P. carried away the game to the tune of five to nothing, and the Navy goat wept. Dave and Dan made several brilliant plays, but the Navy average both of size and skill was somewhat below that of the older, bigger college men.

Other games followed fast now, and the Navy eleven and its subs. had plenty of work cut out for them. Up to the time of the Army-Navy game, the middies had a bright slate of eighty per cent. of victories. Dave and Dan had the pleasure of reading, in the "Army and Navy Journal," that they were considered the strongest men on the left flank that the Navy had been, able to show in ten years.

"When we go up against the Army," Hepson informed Dave and Dan, "I don't know whether you'll play at left or right. It will all depend on where the Army puts Prescott and Holmes. Friends of ours who have watched the play at West Point tell me that Prescott and Holmes are armored terrors on the gridiron."

"They are, if they've gone forward in the game, instead of backward," Darrin replied honestly.

"But you and Dalzell can hold 'em, can't you?" demanded Hepson anxiously.

"I don't dare brag," Dave answered. "The truth, if anything, is that Danny boy and I can hardly hope to hold the Army pair back. You see, Hep, I know Prescott and Holmes pretty well, from the fact that we played together on the same High School eleven for two years. Prescott, in fact, was the boy who trained us all."

"Well, don't let the Navy fellows get the idea that you're afraid of that Army pair," begged Hepson. "It might get our men discouraged. Darry, we simply must wipe up the field with the Army! There isn't—there can't be any such word as 'defeat' for us."

As the time drew near for the greatest of all annual games the instructors at the Naval Academy began to record lower marks for nearly all of the men in the daily recitations. The midshipmen simply couldn't keep their minds from wandering to the gridiron. It meant so much—to beat the Army!

Then quickly enough the feverish day came. Early in the forenoon the entire brigade of midshipmen, in uniform, was marched into town behind the Naval Academy band. Scores of Navy officers, with their ladies, went along. A lot of the townspeople followed in the big rush to Odenton and Baltimore. From there two sections of a special train conveyed the Annapolis host to Philadelphia.

Franklin Field was reached, and one of the most brilliant athletic and social events of the year was on.

We shall not attempt to follow the course of the game here. The Navy eleven hurled itself into the fray with undying heroism, but the Army won the great game. It is all told in the third volume of "THE WEST POINT SERIES," entitled "DICK PRESSCOTT'S THIRD YEAR AT WEST POINT." In that volume, too, is described the meeting of the old-time High School chums, their first meeting since the old-time days back in the tome town of Gridley.

The game was over at last. The Navy was crestfallen, though not a sign of sorrow or humiliation showed in the jaunty step of the men of the brigade as they marched back to the railway station and took the train for the first stage of the journey home—the run between Philadelphia and Baltimore.

On the train Hepson hunted up Dave and Dan.

"You did your best, fellows, I know, that," murmured the defeated football captain. "And you gave me, in advance, a fair estimate of that Army pair, Prescott and Holmes. Say, but they're a pair of terrors! If we had that pair on the Navy eleven, along with you two, no team that the Army ever yet sent out could beat us. But we made a strong fight, at any rate. All of our friends say that."

"I'm glad I didn't do any bragging in advance," Darrin smiled wistfully. "We were fairly eaten up, Hep."

"Oh, well, we'll hope for better luck next year, with the Navy under some other captain. Maybe you'll be captain next year, Darry."

"I don't want to be," Dave answered, with a shake of his head. "If you couldn't carry our team to victory I don't dare try."

"Then I'll be captain—if I'm asked," promised Dan, with the grin that always lurked close to the surface of his face. While hundreds of midshipmen felt desperately blue on the homeward journey, Dalzell had already nearly forgotten his disappointment.

"You'll never be asked," predicted Hepson good-humoredly. "Danny boy, the trouble with you would be that the fellows would never know when you were in earnest. As captain of the eleven, you might start to give an order, and then nothing but a pun would come forth. You're too full of mischief to win victories."

"I hope that won't be true if I ever have the luck to command a battleship in war time," sighed Dalzell, becoming serious for four or five seconds. Then he bent forward and dropped a cold nickel inside of Joyce's collar. The cold coin coursed down Joyce's spine? causing that tired and discouraged midshipman to jump up with a yell.

"Why does the com. ever allow that five-year-old imp to travel with men?" grunted Joyce disgustedly, as he sat down again and now realized that the nickel was under him next to the skin.

"Danny boy," groaned Dave, "will you ever grow up? Why do you go on making a pest of yourself?"

"Why, the fellows need some cheering up, don't they?" Dan inquired.

"If you don't look out, Danny boy, you'll rouse them to such a pitch of cheerfulness that they'll raise one of the car windows and drop you outside for sheer joy."

The joy that had been manifest in Annapolis that morning was utterly stilled when the brigade reached the home town once more. True, the band played as a matter of duty, but as the midshipmen marched down Maryland Avenue in brigade formation they passed many a heap of faggots and many a tar-barrel that had been placed there by the boys of the town to kindle into bonfires with which to welcome the returning victors. But to-night the faggot-piles and the tar-barrels lay unlighted. In the dark this material for bonfires that never were lighted looked like so many spectral reminders of their recent defeat.

It hurt! It always hurts—either the cadets or the midshipmen—to lose the Army-Navy game.

Once back at quarters in Bancroft Hall, it seemed to many of the midshipmen as though it would have been a relief to have to go to study tables to work. Yet, since no work was actually required on this night, none was done.

Midshipmen wandered about in their own rooms and visited. The more they realized the defeat, the bluer they became. From some rooms came sounds of laughter, but it was hollow.

Farley got out a banjo, breaking into a lively darky reel. Yet, somehow, the sound was mournful.

"Please stop that dirge and play something cheerful!" begged the voice of a passing midshipman.

"Put the lyre away, Farl," advised Page. "Nothing sounds happy to-night."

"We love to sing and dance. We're happy all the day—ha, ha!" wailed Dan Dalzell. He wasn't so very blue himself, but he was trying to keep in sympathy with the general tone of feeling.

"Well, Hep, you made as good a showing, after all, as could be expected with a dub team," spoke Joyce consolingly, when they met in a corridor.

"It wasn't a dub team," retorted Hepson dismally. "The eleven was all right. The only trouble lay in having a dub for a captain."

It was a relief to hundreds that night when taps sounded at last, and the master switch turned off the lights in midshipmen quarters. At least the young men were healthy and did not waste hours in wooing sleep and forgetfulness.

Then Sunday morning came, and the football season was over until the next year.

"From now on it's going to be like starting life all over again, after a fire," was the way Dan put it that Sunday morning, in an effort to make some of his comrades feel that all was not lost.