Dick started away, after chaining Grit up, a set look on his face. "I'll have it out with Dutton," he said. CHAPTER XVI FOR THE PRIZE TROOP After a bath and rub down in the gymnasium Dick dressed for evening parade. When this was over he sought out Dutton, who was strolling off the campus with some chums. "Captain Dutton, I wish to speak to you," said Dick, formally saluting. "Well, I don't know that I wish to speak to you. What is it?" asked the young snob, barely acknowledging Dick's courtesy. "Did you take my bulldog to town, and match him to fight another?" Dutton started, then looked insolently at Dick. "What of it?" he asked sneeringly. "This much. That you haven't any right to do that, even if you are my superior officer. Grit is my personal property, and I won't have him fighting." "Aw, what's the harm, Hamilton. He put up a dandy fight and licked a bigger dog than he is," put in one of the cadets. "I don't care, I don't want him to fight." "Oh, you don't?" asked Dutton coolly. "No; and if you take him again----" "Well, what will you do? Report me, I suppose?" said the captain. "No, but I'll thrash you worse than I did the other time, Captain Dutton, that's what I'll do!" exclaimed Dick, hotly. "You leave Grit alone! If you take him again you know what to expect!" Dutton turned pale. He strode toward Dick, but at that moment Captain Grantly, one of the instructors, strolled past. Dutton turned aside. "You haven't heard the last of this--my fresh millionaire," he said in a whisper to Dick, as he and his cronies walked off. "You'll wish you hadn't insulted me." Dick saluted, as the rules required, and marched back to quarters. He felt that he would have enjoyed a good stiff fight with his mean enemy. "I don't suppose this will add to my popularity, among the sporting element," he said to himself. "But I don't care; they shan't fight Grit!" Football practice went on every afternoon, and Dick and the other scrubs were faithful at it. The regular eleven was being whipped into shape, and the first game was close at hand. When it was played Dick found himself wishing he could have a chance, but no such thing happened. The opponents of Kentfield were light-weight players, and the cadets had no difficulty in piling up a big score. "But it will be different next week," Captain Rutledge warned them. "We tackle Mooretown then, and you'll find your work cut out for you." This game was indeed a stiff one, and several players were hurt. The cadets were slightly ahead in the second half, when the right half-back was knocked out, and, as there had been one substitute already put in at that position, there was a call for another one. "Try Hamilton," suggested the coach, after a hurried consultation with the captain.