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ARMY AND NAVY WEEKLY. 13
stopped talking long enough to hear anything said. _ But what have.
you heard?”
‘“That a fool can ask more questions in a minute than a wise
man can answer in a life time.’”
There was silence, quite thick, after that. The three cadets
gasped and grew red in the face and stammered.
“You evidently think,’ began the big fellow angrily.
_ “Tam glad to know I show signs of it,’? said Mark, and then he
bowed politely. ‘‘Now, gentlemen,’’ he added, ‘‘I thank you imost
sincerely for your pleasant quarter of an hour, and I trust that you
have enjoyed it as much as I. In conclusion let me say that since
Tam not really a candidate——’?
“Not a candidate !’’ cried the tall fellow.
“*Not a candidate,’’ echoed Mark, ‘‘and here comes two friends
of mine, and so,’’—a polite bow—‘‘good- day.’
“Great heavens, mar’? cried the three together, running after
him. ‘Please don’t tell the cadets. It’d ruin us!”
‘Tam not mean,’? said Mark, ‘‘though I like a joke. I shall
not.”?
And the three hazers vanished through the sally port. Mark
went up and joined Wicks and Harry. .
CHAPTER VI.
THE FERRYBOAT TO GARRISON’S.
It would take much space to tell what Mark saw in those few
days he spent in the company of his friends. He wandered about
the grounds and the camp with them that afternoon, inspecting
buildings and tents, and monuments, and cannon and what not. He
studied the cadets and their life, and asked all sorts of questions
about it, wondering all the while how he should like it; and finding
more and-more that he thought he should like it very well indeed.
He sat upon the edge of the parade ground late that Saturday
afternoon, and watched the full-dress parade, threé-hundred
cadets moving in most perfect unison to music that awakened all
the military spirit that was in him.
He went that mght to the full-dress hop, and stood shyly in the
doorway thinking that he should like very much to be in the midst
of it all; he went to the chapel on Sunday morning and was thrilled
by the sound of three hundred voices filling the place with the
strains of a hymn which swept. him back. to a little church in his.
little home.
He spent that afternoon wandering about through the woods
with his two friends. On Monday he stood by the battle monument
on the edge of the parade ground, gazing northward far up the valley
of the Hudson, while just below him thundered the mounted battery
with which the cadets were practising.
Later he sat and watched the artillery evolutions upon the
cavalry plain; and when it was over, and Wicks and Harry joined
him again, our hero’s mind was made up for the future as it had
never been before.
‘*Fellows,’’ he said, and he looked them in the eye and meant
it, ‘Iam coming to West Point.”’
Wicks stared at him for a moment and then he seized him by
the hand.
“‘Old man,’’ he cried, ‘if you do we'll put you on the foot-ball
team and lick Yale.’