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Read Ebook: Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days; Or The Handicap of a Millionaire's Son by Garis Howard Roger
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Ebook has 2252 lines and 60178 words, and 46 pages
DICK HAMILTON'S CADET DAYS
DICK GETS A TELEGRAM
"Hi boys! Here goes for a double summersault!"
"Bet you don't do it, Frank."
"You watch."
"Every time you try it you come down on your back," added another lad of the group of those who were watching one of their companions poised on the end of a spring-board.
"Well, this time I'm going to do it just like that circus chap did," and Frank Bender, who had an ambition to become an acrobat, raised his hands above his head and crouched for a spring.
"If you do it I'll follow," said another boy, clad in a bright red bathing suit.
"Good for you, Dick!" exclaimed Walter Mead. "Don't let Frank stump you."
"Here I go!" cried Frank, and, a moment later, he sprang from the spring-board, leaped high into the air, and, turning over twice, came down in true diver style, his hands cleaving the water beneath which he disappeared.
"Good!" cried the boys on the shore.
"I didn't think he'd do it," remarked "Bricktop" Norton, so called from his shock of red hair.
"Me either," added Fred Murdock. "Now it's up to you, Dick."
"That's right."
Dick Hamilton rose from a log on which he was sitting. He was a tall, clean-cut chap, straight as an arrow, with an easy grace about him, and it needed but a glance to show that he was of athletic build. His red bathing suit, from which protruded bronzed arms and legs, was particularly becoming to him.
"There--let's--see--you--do--that!" spluttered Frank, as he came up, some distance from where he had gone down. He shook his head to rid his eyes and ears of water, and struck out for shore.
"Stay there!" called Dick. "I'll swim out farther than you did."
"Dick's cutting out some work for himself," remarked Bricktop, in a low tone to Bill Johnson. "Frank's a dandy swimmer."
"Yes, but Dick Hamilton usually does what he sets out to do," replied Bill. "There he goes."
Dick walked to the end of the spring-board. He teetered up and down on it two or three times, testing the balance of the long plank. Then he took a few steps backward, poised for an instant, and ran forward.
"There he goes!" called Walter.
Like a rubber ball Dick Hamilton arose in the air. He curled himself up into a lump as he leaped, and then, to the surprise of his companions, he turned over not twice, but three times ere he struck the water, which closed up over his feet as they disappeared.
"Well--wouldn't that sizzle your side combs!" cried Bricktop. "Three times!"
"A triple!" added Walter Mead. "Whoever would think Dick could do it!"
"Aw, he's been practicing," called Frank, as he circled about in the water, watching for Dick to come up. "He's been doing it on the sly, and he's kept quiet about it."
"Just like Dick," added Bill. "He isn't satisfied to do ordinary stunts."
"Well, he's done a good one this time," said Fred Murdock. "Say, isn't he staying under a long time?"
There was no sight of the millionaire youth.
"Maybe he hit his head on a rock," suggested Bricktop, in some alarm.
"That's so," went on Fred. "This place isn't any too deep, and he came down hard."
"Maybe we'd better go in after him," remarked Walter.
"Dive down!" called Bill to Frank.
The boys were becoming frightened. Not a ripple, save the little waves made by Frank, as he stood upright, treading water, disturbed the expanse of the swimming hole. There was no sign of Dick Hamilton. Frank prepared for a dive, when, suddenly, at some distance from shore something shot up through the water. It was the hand and arm of a boy. An instant later his head and shoulders popped into view.
"There he is!" cried Walter.
"It's about time he came up," said Bill, somewhat sharply, for Dick's long under-water swim had frightened the boys.
"How's that, fellows?" asked Dick, as he shook the water from his face, and struck out for shore.
"You win!" cried Frank, "but please don't give us heart disease again."
"Why; what's the matter?"
"We'd thought you'd struck on a stone and weren't going to come up again."
"No danger of that," answered Dick, with a laugh. "I'm having too much fun at camp here, to stay down there. Did I make a good dive?"
"Did you? Say, you've got us all beat to a pig's whisper on Fourth of July," admitted Bricktop. "How'd you do it?"
"Yes, I wish you'd show me," added Frank. "You must have been practicing it."
"And you did it without the aid of a net," added Fred, after the fashion of the ringmaster in a circus announcing some marvelous feat.
"I'm going to try it," said Frank, as he clambered out on the bank.
"No, I think we've been in the water long enough this morning," said Dick. "Besides it's most grub time. I don't know how you feel about it, but I think I could nibble at a bit of roast chicken, which I happen to know that our esteemed cook, Hannibal Caesar Erastus Jones, has in the oven."
"Ah! Um!" murmured Bill Johnson.
"That's it! Make a noise like a lunch-grabber!" objected Fred. "I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself."
"Oh, listen to the professor at the breakfast table!" cried Bill with a laugh. "I don't s'pose you're going to nibble at any; art thou, Reginald?"
"Well, you just watch him," advised Fred. "He's got me beat, all right."
"Come on!" cried Dick suddenly. "First fellow at the dining tent gets most of the white meat!"
He started off at a fast clip, the others sprinting after him, and he would have won, but that he stubbed his bare toe on a stone, and had to finish the rest of the distance on one leg, holding the injured member in his hands, making, the while, wry faces at the pain. Bill Johnson won the impromptu race.
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