officer of the Regular Army of the United States, and Prescott
felt that no man could be a good soldier until the duty habit
had become fixed. So, in his earlier years at West Point, Dick
had sometimes been unpopular with certain elements among the cadets
because he would not greatly depart from what he believed to be
his duty as a cadet and a gentleman.

Readers of the _High School Boys' Series_ will recall that Prescott,
in his home town of Gridley, had been the head of Dick & Co.,
a sextette of chums and High School athletes. It was in his High
School days that young Prescott had developed the qualities of
manliness which the Military Academy at West Point was now rounding
off for him.

Readers of the preceding volumes in this series, _Dick Prescott's
First Year at West Point_, _Dick Prescott's Second Year at West
Point_ and _Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point_, are already
familiar with the young man's career as a cadet at the United
States Military Academy. Our readers know how hard the fight
had been for Dick Prescott, who, in addition to his early struggles
to keep his place in scholarship in the corps, had been submitted
to the evil work of enemies in the corps. Some of these enemies
had been exposed in the end, and forced to leave the Military
Academy, but many had been the bitter hours that Prescott had
spent under one cloud or another as the result of the wicked work
of these enemies.

At last, however, Prescott and his roommate and chum, Greg Holmes,
had reached the first class. They had now less than a year to go
before they would be graduated and commissioned as officers in the