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Christmas, with its festivities, was now a memory. New Year’s day came and went, and Don and Bert, each in his own way, began making preparations for their return to Bridgeport. The latter, who was determined that the close of another school year should find him with at least one bar on his shoulder, devoted his morning hours to his books, while Don, to quote his own language, proceeded to put himself through a regular course of training. There was a long siege of hard study before him, but one would have thought, by the way he went to work, that he was preparing himself for a physical rather than an intellectual contest. He rode hard, hunted perseveringly, kept up his regular exercise with Indian clubs and dumb-bells, and looked, as he said he felt, as if he were good for any amount of work.

Knowing how valuable a little advice would have been to them when they first joined the academy, Don and Bert rode over to see Lester, intending to give him some idea of the nature of the examination he would have to pass before he would be received as a student, and to drop a few hints that would enable him to keep out of trouble; but they never repeated the experiment. Lester was surly and not at all sociable; and he was so very independent, and seemed to have so much confidence in his ability to make his way without help from anybody, that his visitors took their leave without saying half as much to him as they had intended.