"Do you tell me, on your sacred honor," proposed Alf, "that you
haven't heard a single rattler this afternoon?"

"I give you my most solemn word that I haven't," Tom answered.
"Come, come, Alf! What you want to do is to shake off the trembles.
Let me take your arm. Now, walk briskly with me. Inflate your
chest with all the air you can get in as we go along. Just wait
and see if that isn't the way to shake off these horrid cigarette
dreams."

Something in Reade's vigorous way of speaking made Alf Drew obey.
Tom put him over the ground at as good a gait as he judged the
cigarette victim would be able to keep up.

Readers of the preceding volumes of this series, and of other,
earlier series, need not the slightest introduction to Tom Reade
and Harry Hazelton. Our readers of the "_Grammar School Series_"
know Tom and Harry as two of the members of that famous sextette
of schoolboy athletes who, under the leadership of Dick Prescott,
were known as Dick & Co.

In the "_High School Boys Series_," too, our readers have followed
the fortunes of Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, through all their
triumphs on football fields, on baseball diamonds and in all the
school sports.

Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes succeeded in winning appointments
to the United States military Academy, and their adventures are
fully set forth in the "_West Point Series_."