To both Dick and Dave it seemed as though the next few days simply
refused to budge along on the calendar. Certainly neither of
them had ever known time to pass so slowly before.
"I hope I'll be able to keep my nerve up until the seventeenth,"
groaned Darrin.
"Surely, you will," grinned Dick. "You've got to!"
"I've been studying until all the words on a page seem to run
together, and I don't know one word from another," complained
Dave.
"Then drop study---if you dare to!"
"I'm thinking of it," proposed Darrin seriously. "Actually, I've
been boning so that the whole thing gets on my nerves, and stays
there like a cargo of lead."
"Let's pledge ourselves, then, not to study on the fifteenth or
the sixteenth," urged Dick.
"I'll go you, right off, on that," cried Darrin eagerly.
"And we'll spend those two days in the open air, roaming around,
and trying to enjoy ourselves," added Prescott.
"Enjoy ourselves---with all the load of suspense hanging over
our heads?" gasped Darrin.
"Well, we'll try it anyway."
To most people in and around Gridley the world, in these few days,
seemed to bob along very much as usual. Dick and Dave, however,
knew better.
At last came the evening of the sixteenth! Both anxious boys
turned in early, though neither expected to sleep much. Both,
however, were soon in the land of Nod.
But Dick awoke at half-past four on the morning of the fateful
seventeenth.
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