Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/94

80 no use making trouble. Even if he did do it on purpose, I wouldn't gain anything by reporting him. I'm no squealer."

"But you might have been badly hurt," said Butler.

"I wasn't though, and a miss is as good as a mile."

"That's a good way of looking at it," commented Paul. "I'd feel like fighting him, if he did that to me."

"Say, I'm all right. There's no need for you fellows to come back with me," went on Dick.

"If we don't Dutton may make a row," objected Butler. "We'd better do it."

Not wanting to get his fellow cadets into trouble, Dick allowed them to accompany him to the hospital, which was maintained by the academy. There the surgeon in charge, a grizzled war veteran, felt of our hero's bones, and announced, gruffly, that he was all right, but that he had better rest a while.

Which Dick was glad enough to do, as his head was beginning to ache.

"Dutton must want to get rid of me," he thought, as he stretched out on the bed in his room. "If he keeps on I shall certainly have a clash with him, and then I s'pose there'll be trouble. I don't want to fight, but I'm not going to submit to his meanness. I certainly am under a handicap here. I wish I could ask dad to send