Greg knew better than to press his questioning further, just then.  He contented himself with crossing the room, resting both hands on Dick’s shoulders.

“Now, old ramrod, just remember this:  Into every life a good deal of trouble comes.  It is up to each fellow, in his own case, to show how much of a man he is.  The fellow who lies down, or runs away, isn’t a man.  The fellow who fights his trouble out to a grim finish, is a man every inch of his five or six feet!  The class is wild, just now, but on misinformation.  Fight it out!  Enemies of yours have brought you to this pass.  Don’t run away!  All your friends are with you as much as ever they were.”

Dick was a good deal affected.

“Believe me, Greg, whatever I decide on doing won’t be in the line of running away.  Whatever I decide upon will be what I finally believe to be for the best good of the service.”

“Humph!” muttered Greg, looking wonderingly at his chum.

In the closing period of the next forenoon Dick’s section did not recite.  Greg’s did.  So Prescott was left alone in the room with his books.

Despite himself, Greg was so worried, during that recitation, that he “fessed cold”—–­that is, he secured a mark but a very little above zero.

As soon as the returning section was dismissed Cadet Holmes, his heart beating fast, hurried to his room.

There sat Dick, at the study table, as Greg had left him.  But Prescott had pushed his textbooks aside.  Before him rested only a sheet of paper.  With pen in hand Prescott wrote something at the bottom just as Holmes entered the room.  Then Dick looked up with a half cheery face.

“I’ve done it, Greg,” he announced simply, in a hard, dry voice.

“Done it?” echoed Cadet Holmes.  “What?”

“I have written my resignation as a member of the corps of cadets, United States Military Academy.”

“Bosh!” roared Cadet Holmes in a great rage.  “The resignation is written, signed, and—–­it sticks!” returned Dick Prescott with quiet emphasis.

CHAPTER X

LIEUTENANT DENTON’S STRAIGHT TALK

“Let me have that paper!” demanded Greg, darting forward.

There was fire in Cadet Holmes’s eyes and purpose in his heart as he reached forward to snatch the sheet from the desk.

Yet Dick Prescott stepped before him, thrusting him quietly aside with a manner that was not to be overridden.

“Don’t touch it, Greg!” he ordered in a low voice that was none the less compelling.

“But you shan’t send that resignation in!” quivered Greg.

“My dear boy, you know very well that I shall!”

“Have you no thought for me?” Cadet Holmes demanded.

“My going may put you in a blue streak for a week, old fellow, but it will put me in a blue streak for a lifetime.  Yet there’s no other way for me.  What’s the use of being an ostracized officer in the service?  With you, Greg, old chum, it is different.  You will, after a little, be very happy in the Army.”