"You are---what?"

"The last fellows you've met in Gridley. But where's Greg?"

"If he's out of bed," grinned Prescott, "he's in cit. clothes."

"Carrying a rifle and marching the lock-step---the route-step,
I mean---has dulled your brain," growled Tom Reade. "Is Greg
in Gridley?"

"What scoundrel is taking my name in vein?" demanded Holmes, coming
upon the trio.

Then there were hearty greetings, all over again. But in the
end Reade looked Greg over from head to foot.

"Do they make you sleep on a stretcher at West Point?" Tom wanted
to know. "Or what do they do, to pull a pair of galoots out to
the length that you two have attained."

"It's the physical training and the military drills," explained
Prescott, laughing. "But my! You fellows look like the Indian's
head on a copper cent!"

Tom and Harry were, indeed, highly bronzed by the hot southwestern
sun. Harry, in fact, was well on the way to being black, so burned
had he become by his last few months of work.

"I hope, if you fellows are ever allowed to go forth into the Army,
you'll get your first station down in Arizona," teased Tom.