One thing these Gridley High School boys had learned in the football squad, and that was discipline. So, though there were some gloomy looks, all remembered that Dick had been chosen trainer during the hike, and that his word, in training matters, was to be their law. So the tent came down, in pretty nearly record time, and was loaded on the wagon. The horse was harnessed, also without breakfast, and the party started down the road with Harry Hazelton holding the reins. "I hope it's a short two miles," growled Reade to Darrin. "Humph! A fine Indian you'd make, Tom!" jibed Dave. "An Indian is trained in being hungry. It's a part of the work that he has to undergo before he is allowed to be one of the men of the tribe." "That's just the trouble with me," Tom admitted. "I've never been trained to be an Indian, and I am inclined to think that it requires training, and a lot of it." Outwardly Tom didn't "grump" any, but he made a resolve that, hereafter, his voice would be strong for halting right on the bank of a swimming place. "Can't we hit up the pace a bit?" asked Tom. "Yes," nodded Dick. "All who want to travel fast can hike right ahead. Just keep on the main road." Tom, Greg and Dan immediately forged ahead, taking long, rapid steps. "But don't go in the water until we come up," Dick called after them. "Remember, the morning is hot, and you'll be too overheated to go in at once." "Eh?" muttered Tom, with a sidelong look at his two fast-time companions. "Humph!" Then they fell back with the wagon again. "There doesn't seem to be any way to beat the clock to breakfast," observed Dan, after he had walked several rods down the road. "I've talked with old soldiers," Dick went on, "who have told me all sorts of tales of war time, about the commissary train not catching up with the fighting line for four days at a stretch. Yet here you fellows feel almost ill if you have to put off breakfast half an hour. What kind of men would you boys make if it came to the stern part of life?" "If going without breakfast is part of the making of a man," said Danny Grin solemnly, "then I'd rather be a child some more." "You always will be a child," Dave observed dryly. "Birthdays won't make any great difference in your real age, Danny boy." "After that kind of a roast," grinned Reade, "I believe I'll take a reef in a few of the bitter things I was about to say." Dick laughed pleasantly. Somehow, with the walk, all soon began to feel better. That first fainting, yearning desire for food was beginning to pass. "Do you know what the greatest trouble is with the American people?" asked Dick, after they had covered a mile. "I don't," Tom admitted. "Do you, Dick?" "I've been forming an idea," Prescott went on. "Our fault, if I can gather it rightly from what I've been reading, is that we Americans are inclined to be too babyish." "Tell that to the countries we've been at war with in the past," jeered Tom Reade.