"Where's Anstey?" Dick inquired.
"Not back yet, I'm sure," replied Briggs.
"Oh, well, he'll be back before the day's over," Dick went on
confidently. "That youth from Virginia is much too good a soldier
to fail to report on time."
Soon after the instruction parties of the first, third and fourth
classes came marching back into camp. It seemed, indeed, like
old times, to see the fellows all rushing off to their tents to
clean up and change uniforms before the dinner call sounded.
Then the call for dinner formation came. Dick and Greg fell in,
in their old company, and marched away at the old, swinging soldier
tread.
Most of the afternoon the returned furlough men spent in their new
rooms. During that afternoon Anstey pounced in upon them. The
Virginian said little, as usual, but the length and fervor of the
handclasp that he gave Dick and Greg was enough.
With evening came the color-line entertainment. Dick and Anstey
walked on the outskirts of the throng of visitors.
Cadet Holmes, having discovered that the especial girl to whom
he was at present betrothed was not at West Point, played the
casual gallant for a fair cousin of Second Classman McDermott.
The night went out in a blaze of color, illumination and fireworks
just before taps.
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