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Cadet Days: A Story of West Point

by Charles King · English · Gutenberg #49320 · 393,014 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cadet Days: A Story of West Point

Author: Charles King


        
Release date: June 29, 2015 [eBook #49320]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CADET DAYS: A STORY OF WEST POINT ***

[Illustration: "HE IS LIFTED ON THEIR SHOULDERS AND BORNE DOWN THE
ROAD"]




CADET DAYS

A Story of West Point

BY

CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.

AUTHOR OF

"A WAR-TIME WOOING" "BETWEEN THE LINES"
"CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK" ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

[Illustration]

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS




  By CAPTAIN CHARLES KING.

  A WAR-TIME WOOING. Illustrated. Post 8vo,
  Cloth, $1.00.

  BETWEEN THE LINES. Illustrated. Post 8vo,
  Cloth, $1.25.

  CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK. Illustrated. Post
  8vo, Cloth, $1.25.

  CADET DAYS. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth.

  ☞ _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the
  publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
  States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._

  Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers.

  _All rights reserved._




TO

A MOTHER

WHO GAVE HER ONLY SON TO OUR ARMY, WHO LIVED FOR HIM
THROUGH TRIAL TO FINAL TRIUMPH, AND WHO EVEN IN
HER SADDEST DAYS, BROUGHT HOPE TO OTHER
HEARTS AND SUNSHINE TO OTHER HOMES
THIS STORY OF CADET LIFE

Is Inscribed




ILLUSTRATIONS


"HE IS LIFTED ON THEIR SHOULDERS AND BORNE
DOWN THE ROAD"      _Frontispiece_

"FOLLOWING A GUIDE WHO KNEW EVERY INCH OF THE WAY"     _Facing page_  16

"A SENTRY GLANCED AT HIM KEENLY"      "  "  30

THE AWKWARD SQUAD      "  "  40

PLEBE DRILL      "  "  58

"'TAKE THAT ONE, THEN,' SAID  MR. LEONARD"      "  "  66

"THE COLONEL GLANCED QUICKLY ALONG THE POLISHED WEAPON"      "  "  86

ON GUARD DUTY      "  "  92

"'WHO COMES THERE?'"      "  "  104

"WOODS'S FRIEND APPEARED AT  THE TENT DOOR"      "  "  116

"'MR. ROSS, YOU ARE HEREBY PLACED IN CLOSE ARREST'"      "  "  130

TURNING OUT OF THE GUARD      "  "  136

"THE RIFLE WAS BROUGHT IN BY A DRUM-BOY ORDERLY"      "  "  146

"'YOU ARE WANTED AT ONCE AT THE COURT-ROOM'"      "  "  158

"'I WANT YOU TO COME AND WALK WITH ME,'
CONNELL SAID"      "  "  180

ENFORCED TRAMP IN THE AREA ON SATURDAY AFTERNOONS      "  "  184

"'I'LL TAKE NO MORE DEMERIT ON OTHER MEN'S ACCOUNT'"      "  "  190

INSPECTION      "  "  194

"WON'T YOU SHAKE HANDS?'"      "  "  202

ON SPECIAL DUTY OVER PLEBES      "  "  208

"THE CADET CAPTAIN BEGAN HIS INSPECTION"      "  "  216

"THE SKIRMISH DRILLS WERE FULL OF SPIRIT AND INTEREST"      "  "  224

"'BUT IT'S PROUD I AM TO SALUTE YE, SIR,' SAID THE VETERAN"      "  "  232

"GEORDIE, AMES, AND CONNELL WENT OVER TO LOOK
ON AND HEAR THE MUSIC"      "  "  246

"AND SEE HER BOY AT THE HEAD OF THE FIRST PLATOON"      "  "  288




CADET DAYS:

A STORY OF WEST POINT




CHAPTER I


"Pops, there's no use talking; we've simply got to send you to the
Point."

"I'm sure I wish you could, Colonel. Father's tried every way he could
think of, but cadetships don't go a-begging—out here, at least. The
President has only one or two 'at large' appointments this year, and
there were over a thousand applications for them."

"Well, have you tried Mr. Pierce, the Congressman for this district?"

"Oh, yes, sir, tried him long ago. He was very polite—Congressmen
always are. He asked me to go round and get all the signatures to my
application I possibly could, and kept me running for six weeks or so.
Then he gave it to Mr. Breifogle's son."

Colonel Belknap smiled. "Yes, I remember hearing," said he,
reflectively, tapping his spurred boot-heel with his riding-switch and
critically eying the sturdy young fellow who stood respectfully before
him. George Graham, the post surgeon's eldest son, was just seventeen,
of medium height, wiry and athletic in build, with deep chest and broad
shoulders, with close-curling brown hair, with big, frank, steady blue
eyes, and a complexion that was probably fair enough in his baby days,
but now was so tanned by sun and wind that the down just sprouting on
his cheeks and upper lip seemed almost white by contrast. A picture
of boyish health, strength, and activity was "Geordie," as his mother
ever called him in vain protest against the familiar "Pops" by which
he was generally hailed—a pet name given him by the officers when he
was but a "four-year-old," far out in Arizona—a boy who had been reared
in the West, whose first playmate was a wild little Apache, whose
earliest friends were the rough troopers at an isolated station; a
boy who had been taught to hunt and trail and shoot the Indian arrow
before he was nine; who had ridden "pony-back" across the continent
from Arizona to Kansas with a cavalry column before he was ten; who
had stalked an antelope along the Smoky Hill before he was twelve;
who had shot a black bear in the Yellowstone Mountains when he was
only fifteen; and raced a buffalo bull into the fords of Milk River
within sight of the British possessions across latitude 49 within the
following year. He had met and mingled with Indians of many a tribe. He
had picked up something of the Apache tongue from his playmate Dick;
had visited the Navajo Reservation, near old Fort Defiance, in New
Mexico, and brought away as his very own one of their wonderful woven
blankets. He had learned not a little of the sign-language, and so was
able to communicate and make himself understood among even the Cheyenne
urchins around Fort Supply. After that his father had been stationed
just long enough at Niobrara to enable Geordie to feel quite at home
among the Ogallala and Brulé Sioux, whose reservations were just across
the Dakota line, and whose visits to the post were frequent. Then the
doctor was ordered far up to Fort Assiniboine, where Pops expected
to freeze, but found the summer days as hot as they were in Arizona,
and the mosquitoes worse than they were at Supply. There he studied
the Northern Indians, and came to the conclusion that the Blackfeet
and Gros-Ventres could not be compared favorably with the lithe and
sinewy and marvellously active Indians of Arizona. Geordie swore by
the Apaches. There were no trailers like the Tontos; no bowmen or
ball-players like the Hualpais. The Sioux and Cheyennes could ride,
perhaps, but all the Sioux in Dakota could not whip Eskeldetsee's band
"if you put 'em in the mountains"—which was probably true. And so by
the time he was seventeen Geordie had ridden, marched, or travelled
by ambulance, stage, or rail through most of the great Western States
and Territories; but from the time he was four years old he had never
been east of Omaha, or set foot in the streets of a bigger town than
Cheyenne.

Nor had he ever regularly attended any school. There were no schools to
speak of near any of the garrisons at which his father was stationed;
but Dr. Graham was a man of scholarly tastes, a graduate of a famous
university in Scotland, and one who by faithful study kept abreast
of the leading minds in his profession. People generally led a very
healthful open-air life on the broad Western frontier, and Dr. Graham
had few patients to claim his time. He planned, therefore, all the
studies for his two boys, he himself hearing them recite in history,
geography, and arithmetic, while their devoted mother, at whose knee
they had successively learned their A B C's, and whose fragile white
hand had guided their chubby fists in the tracing of their first
pot-hooks, was their instructor in the other rudiments.

Regularly, five mornings a week, the little fellows were set at
their books right after guard-mounting, and, with brief intermission,
worked until the bugles sounded "orderly call," or the drums and fifes
merrily played "Roast Beef of Old England" at noon. No wonder they
learned to welcome that call. Then they had their frugal luncheon.
The doctor was a stanch Scotchman, who believed that boyish brawn and
brain throve better on "parritch" and milk than on any other pabulum.
Think of boys who never knew the taste of candy until after they were
twelve—to whom hot biscuit was forbidden, and tea and coffee tabooed!
They grew up ruddy-cheeked, freckle-faced, clear-eyed, sturdy-limbed,
burly young "Hielanders," with marvellous capacity for solid food,
sound sleep, and active sports. They were better taught than most
of the other children around the garrisons, for what they knew they
knew well. The three years' difference in their ages gave "Pops," of
course, too much advantage in their boyish tiffs and scuffles; for
boys will romp and wrestle, just as puppies play and kittens frolic,
and these, starting in fun, close sometimes in fury; but they forget
the feud as quickly as it was begun. Pops learned at an early age the
lesson of self-restraint, the law of forbearance towards the younger
and weaker brother. It was not learned intuitively, perhaps, but rather
the reverse. The doctor was of a famous old Scotch Presbyterian clan,
with a wholesome faith in Calvin and the doctrine of original sin.
His gentle wife had thought to convert her eldest hope by appeals to
his finer nature, but the doctor held that there was just so much of
the "thrawn deevil" in every boy that had to be trounced out of him.
It was all very well for Pops to tussle with his Apache playmate,
and come home covered with dirt and bumps and glory, and explosive
with tremendous tales of his personal valor—Pops would brag when he
was young, and many another boy would have done the same under like
conditions—but he was too big and strong for "Buddie;" and so when Bud
came roaring in one day to tell how "Pops fwowed me down and hit me,"
Pops owned up that it was true. Bud _would_ meddle with what he and
Dick were trying to make, and he "just pushed him away." Mamma gravely
admonished; but papa gave warning. It happened again before very long,
and this time the doctor took Pops into his den, and presently poor
Mrs. Graham ran to the dining-room and covered her ears, and Buddie
howled in sudden revulsion of feeling. The doctor seldom punished, but
what his right hand found to do he did with all his might.

"I want you to remember this, George," said he, half an hour later,
"a manly boy must be merciful. It isn't enough that you should make
allowances for Buddie's blunders, you must be lenient to his faults.
When he is older he will be wiser. Meantime, the blows you strike must
be for, not against him."

He needn't have said that. Pops was far readier to fight for his
younger brother than he was to worry him in the least, and he took his
flogging sorely to heart. He was only ten at the time. Bud had tried
him severely. He had begged the little fellow to desist, and finally,
losing all patience, had violated orders and thumped him—not very hard,
perhaps, but still hard enough to warrant half at least of the pitiful
tale the smaller boy ran to tell at once and at home. Geordie felt very
much aggrieved at Bud when sent forth finally to go to his room and
meditate on his sins and nurse his many sore spots; but when he saw the
misery in the little fellow's face, when Bud, with fresh outburst of
tears, threw himself into his brother's arms, clung to him sobbing, and
could not say for the very violence of his grief how he hated himself
for telling, the reconciliation was complete, and the three—mother
and boys—stole away up-stairs and had a hug and cry together all by
themselves, and came down again an hour later much happier after all,
and quite ready to make it up with papa. But the doctor wasn't there.
He had slipped out, despite the fact of its being his study hour, and
was found at tea-time miserably promenading the bank of the stream
half a mile from the post, and quite unconscious that the evening gun
had fired. He never whipped Pops again; indeed, the boy gave him no
cause to; and he never thrashed Buddie, even when that unrepentant
little sinner well deserved it. He even declined to reprimand Pops at
the excited appeal of Mrs. Captain Vaughan, whose twelve-year-old son
came home from the swimming-pool, five days after, with a battered
countenance, and a complaint that he had been beaten without cause
by Pops Graham. Investigation of the case resulted in the fact that
young Vaughan was trying to duck Buddie, when the latter's big brother
happened upon the scene. Between the doctor and his boys there grew up
a sort of tacit understanding, a firmly grounded trust and affection,
that seldom found vent in caress of any kind, and was rarely apparent
in word. George shot up from sturdy boyhood into athletic youth with
thorough faith in his father, who, he believed, was the best friend he
had or could expect to have. With all his heart he honored him, and
with all his soul he loved his mother.

And now they were stationed at Fort Reynolds, with a thriving Western
mining metropolis just six miles away to the east, with hunting and
fishing in the lofty mountains to the west, and a great tumbling sea
of grassy prairie stretching away to the east and south. Geordie's
pony had been turned over to Bud long months ago, for the bigger boy
could back and ride and control the liveliest bucker among all the
bronchos in the cavalry stables. Officers and troopers alike declared
that Pops was cut out for the cavalry. He loved a horse. He had broken
and trained his last possession, a "cayuse" colt from the herd of old
Two Moons, chief of the northern Cheyennes. He had ridden and hunted
by himself, or with a single trooper for a companion, all through
the mountains that frowned across the western sky, rarely coming
home without an abundant supply of venison or bear meat, and still
faithfully kept up his studies, hoping that by some good-fortune he
might succeed in getting an appointment to the great Military Academy
of the nation—hoping almost against hope, yet never desponding. At last
it came, and this was the way of it.

Just as the wintry winds began to blow, and the soldiers, turning out
for roll-call at the break of day, began to note how the mountains
seemed to be wearing their fleecy nightcaps farther down about their
ears until the bald peaks were covered with a glistening, spotless
helmet, and the dark fringes of pine and fir down among the gorges
and foot-hills looked all the blacker by contrast, there came a fresh
battalion of cavalry marching into the post to relieve the ——th just
ordered away, and Pops had sadly bidden adieu to the departing troops,
little dreaming what warm friends he was destined to find among the
new. First to arrive, with a single orderly in attendance, was the
regimental quartermaster, Lieutenant Ralph McCrea, and to him said the
quartermaster whom McCrea was to relieve:

"Mac, this young gentleman is Dr. Graham's son George, our candidate
for West Point. He knows plainscraft, woodcraft, and mountain scouting
as well as you do mathematics. He can ride as well as any man in my
troop. Give him a lift in algebra and 'math.,' and he'll teach you all
there is worth knowing about this part of the country."

The kindly young West-Pointer seemed to take at once to the surgeon's
blushing boy. In the wintry weather that speedily set in there was
little opportunity for hunting or exploration in the mountains; but
in the long evenings McCrea became a frequent visitor at Dr. Graham's
fireside, and finding that Pops had a sound analytical sort of brain
in his curly pate, the quartermaster took delight in giving him stiff
problems to work out, and taught him the West Point system of deducing
rules instead of blindly following without knowing why or wherefore;
and the friendship between them waxed and multiplied, and McCrea became
warmly enlisted in the effort to secure a vacant cadetship for his boy
friend. But knowing there was no chance "at large," as the President
had already named his two candidates, the boy had done his best with
the local Congressman, who, as Pops had said, had been most gracious
and encouraging, but had bestowed the plum upon the son of his rich and
influential constituent, Mr. Breifogle, whose brewery gave employment
to over fifty voters. As alternate he had named the son of Counsellor
Murphy, a lively local politician, and Pop's hopes were dashed.

Not so McCrea's. As quartermaster his duties called him frequently into
town, where the First National Bank was the depository, and where he
kept the large fund appropriated for rebuilding stables and quarters
that had been destroyed by fire the previous year. "Neither of those
young fellows," said he to Dr. Graham, "can pass the preliminary
examination. It is by long odds too stiff for Breifogle mentally and
for Murphy physically. Keep this to ourselves, and get Mr. Pierce to
promise that George shall have the next vacancy. If we can get the
Colonel to ask it, Pierce will say yes, perhaps; first because they
served together in Virginia during the war, and second because he won't
think he's promising anything at all. It's his first term, and he
doesn't dream how hard that examination is, or how certain Breifogle is
to fail. Now, if there were only some way we could 'get a pull' on him."

The way came sooner than was looked or hoped for. One December
afternoon, just as the lights were peeping out here and there in the
bustling shops of the busy Western town, and a thick, heavy cloud
of snow was settling noiselessly upon roof and roadway, and all the
foot-hills to the west were robed in white, and all the mountain
passes deep in drifts, and the managers of the First National were
congratulating themselves that their collections in the swarming mining
settlements across the range were complete, and the thousands in coin
and greenbacks safely hoarded in their vaults, and brewer Breifogle
and two other opulent directors were seated with the president in the
bank parlor, rubbing their hands over the neat balance exhibited, and
discussing the propriety of a congratulatory despatch to Congressman
Pierce, now at his post of duty at Washington, and the paying-teller
had just completed the summing up of his cash account, and the
bookkeeper was stowing away his huge volumes, and a clerk was lugging
sacks of coin and stacks of Treasury notes into the open door of the
vault, under the vigilant eye of the cashier, and the janitor had
pulled down the shades and barred the iron shutters, and everything
spoke eloquently of business security and prosperity—in stepped a
squad of velvet-footed, soft-voiced, slouch-hatted strangers, and in
the twinkling of an eye cashier and clerk, tellers, book-keeper, and
janitor were as completely covered by six-shooters as the new-comers
were with snow. It was a clear case of "hands up, everybody." Two of
the party sidled into the parlor and stood guard over the magnates,
three or four held the outer officials in statuesque discomfort, while
two deft-handed individuals loaded up with bills and bags of gold,
and vanished softly as they came. Their comrades gave them a start of
sixty seconds, and then slowly and calmly backed out into the street,
revolvers levelled to the last, and in less than four minutes from the
moment of their entrance not one of the gang was in sight. Timing their
arrival exactly, they had ridden into town from the northwest just at
dusk, left their strong, spirited horses, held by accomplices in a
side street not fifty yards away; were in and out, up and away again,
in less time than it takes to tell it, and with them ninety thousand
dollars in cash.

Vain the rush of clerks and tellers and directors into the snow-covered
street. Vain the yells of "Murder!" "Robbers!" "Road-agents!" A crowd
collected in a few minutes, but all were afoot and powerless to follow.
It would be an hour before the sheriff could muster a mounted party
strong enough to pursue; but he had his wits about him.

"It's the old Hatton gang, sure!" he cried. "They dare not go to the
mines. They'll make for Marcy's Pass, and scatter when they get to
the cove beyond. There's only one hope." And like a deer the active
frontiersman ran to the telegraph office.

"Rush this out to the fort!" he cried, as he pencilled a despatch.

 "First National just robbed by Hatton gang. Ten men. Ninety thousand
 gone. Government funds mostly. ["That'll make him act," he muttered.]
 They're making for Marcy's Pass. You can head 'em off by Squaw Cañon
 if you send cavalry at once. We follow trail. Answer.

      "BRENT, Sheriff."

Colonel Belknap, with a knot of officers, was in the club-room just
after stables when the despatch was handed to him by the breathless
operator. He was an old campaigner, who had served almost a lifetime in
the West.

"Mount your troop instantly, Lane!" he called to one of his most
trusted captains. "Never mind their supper; they can have that later.
Listen to this." And he read the despatch aloud.

The entrance to Marcy's Pass lay about nine miles nearly due west from
town. Hatch's Cove was a lovely nook in the summer-time, but almost
inaccessible in winter, lying across the range, and approached from
the east by the old road through the Pass. Lance Creek, a clear and
beautiful stream, rose in the cove and made its way through the range
by means of a tortuous and wellnigh impassable gorge known as Squaw
Cañon, which opened into the foot-hills not more than two miles and
a half away to the westward of Fort Reynolds. All this was promptly
discussed even as the sergeants' voices could be heard ringing out the
order in the barrack corridors across the parade.

"Turn out, 'E' troop, lively; carbines and revolvers, fur coats and
gloves. Jump now, men!"

Down went knife and fork, cup and spoon. Up sprang the laughing,
chaffing, boisterous crowd of the moment before. Away they tore to
their bunk-room, and grabbed their great-coats and furs; away to the
arm-racks for carbine and six-shooter. Quickly they buckled the broad
woven cartridge-belts, and then went bounding down the barrack stairs,
forming ranks in the softly falling snow. Double time they trotted
down to the long, dimly lighted stables, and in among their astonished
and snorting horses. In ten minutes they were trotting away to the
westward through wellnigh impenetrable darkness, through a muffling
snowfall, over an unseen and unknown trail, yet hesitating not a
minute; trotting buoyantly, confidently ahead, following a guide who
knew every inch of the way to and through the cañon and miles and miles
beyond.

"Who can lead them? What scouts have you on your roll who know the
hills?" was the Colonel's anxious query of his quartermaster, while the
troop was saddling.

"No scouts left, sir, now; but we don't need them. Here's Geordie
Graham."

Yes, Pops, and the doctor too, both in saddle and ready; so was McCrea,
and so it happened that less than an hour later Luke and Jim Hatton,
leaders of the band, bearers of most of the spoil, a hundred yards
ahead of their fellows as they issued from the westward end of Marcy's
Pass, deeming themselves perfectly secure from any capture except from
the rear, ten safe miles away from town, rode slap in among a whole
troop of cavalry, and were knocked on the head, disarmed, dismounted,
and relieved of their plunder before they could fire a shot or utter a
cry of warning.

[Illustration: "FOLLOWING A GUIDE WHO KNEW EVERY INCH OF THE WAY"]

"We never could have got them in all the world, sir," said both Lane
and McCrea, "but for Pops here. He knew the way, even in the dark, and
we headed them off in the nick of time."

It was this service that called forth Colonel Belknap's remarks at
the head of this chapter. It was this that prompted him to say to the
officers of the First National next day that the least they could do
was to telegraph the Honorable Mr. Pierce, M.C., urging him to promise
that the next vacancy at West Point should be filled by George Montrose
Graham. It was the despatch signed by these officials and a dozen
leading citizens—for McCrea struck while the iron was hot, and took
the paper around himself—that caused Mr. Pierce to wire his pledge
in reply. And one day in February there came a note to Dr. Graham's,
saying that Counsellor Murphy had been convinced by the leading medical
practitioner in town that his boy could never pass the physical
examination at the Point, and would better be turning his talents to
some other channel, and then Colonel Belknap reminded Mr. Pierce of
his promise, and Pierce was caught. On Valentine's Day in 188—, to
Geordie Graham's speechless joy and Buddie's enthusiastic delight, a
big official envelope of the War Department was placed in the former's
hand. He knew what it meant. He went over and threw his arms around
his mother's neck and bent and kissed her, for her loving eyes were
swimming in tears.




CHAPTER II


Among the formal official documents in the envelope which brought
such delight to the Graham family was one giving in detail the
qualifications necessary to secure the admission of a candidate to West
Point. He was subjected soon after his arrival, so said the papers,
to a rigid physical examination by a board of experienced surgeons.
Glancing over the array of causes of disqualification, it was apparent
to the doctor that an absolutely perfect physique was necessary, but
on all these points he felt well assured. As to other qualifications,
the age for admission of cadets to the Academy was stated to be between
seventeen and twenty-two years. Candidates must be unmarried, at least
five feet in height, free from any infectious or immoral disorder,
and generally from any deformity, disease, or infirmity which might
in the faintest degree render them unfit for military service. They
must be well versed in reading, in writing, including orthography, in
arithmetic, and have a knowledge of the elements of English grammar,
of descriptive geography, particularly of our own country, and of the
history of the United States. That seemed simple enough. On all these
points Geordie, as well as his father, had no doubt whatever. "Sound
as a dollar" was the universal verdict, and the wisdom of his father's
rigid system of training was all the more apparent. But when they came
to look over the formidable list of specimens of the problems and
questions which the candidates were required to solve and answer, the
boy's heart failed him a little. Even McCrea shook his head over some
of them.

"It is ten years since I went up for my examination, just as you are
to go, Pops—an army boy who had had precious little schooling; but I
don't remember any problems as hard as this one." And the Quartermaster
wrinkled his brows over a complicated example, while Captain Lane,
poring over a big atlas, was hunting for a chain of mountains he could
not remember ever before having heard of.

"It seems a queer confession," said the latter, "but I don't believe I
could begin to pass the entrance examination to the Academy, from which
I was graduated so many years ago. I certainly couldn't without months
of preparation."

The Colonel suggested that perhaps these hard nuts were ladled out in
order to stimulate the candidate to closer study. The questions really
propounded would not be so difficult. But the doctor and McCrea were
determined to take no chances.

"There are only three months left for preparation," said Graham; "the
question is how to employ the time to best advantage. George is willing
to study hard, and you and I to teach, but what I'm thinking is that we
may be wasting time on immaterial points and neglecting some that are
essential. Would it not be best to send him on and have him study under
some one who knows just exactly what is needed?"

And McCrea said, "Yes," and wrote forthwith to an old friend, an
officer whom severe wounds had incapacitated for active service, and
who had opened a school of preparation at the Point adapted to the
needs of candidates for admission. And so it resulted that early in
April, for the first time in his life, Geordie Graham was to leave
father, mother, and Bud, and, for the first time since he was a mere
baby-boy, to set foot across the Missouri.

Over that farewell we need not linger. How many big, salty tears were
dropped into the depths of the trunk no one on earth but the loving
mother who packed it could ever tell. Yet even now, face to face with
the inevitable separation, not one word would she say that might cast
a shadow over the hopes of her big boy, as she spoke of Geordie as a
means of distinguishing him from Bud, her "little Benjamin." Fondly had
she hoped that as he grew older Geordie's tastes would turn to some
other profession, but she hoped in vain. First, last, and all the time,
ever since the troopers at Verde decorated him with his Corporal's
chevrons when he was a mite of a four-year-old, the longing of his
heart was to be a soldier. For boys with that ambition there is no
school like West Point; for boys without it, any other school would be
better.

"There isn't a man in all 'E' troop that isn't sorry to have you leave
the fort, Geordie," said old Sergeant Nolan, as the boy went the rounds
at afternoon stables, bidding his friends good-bye, and taking a
farewell look at his favorite horses; "but what's more, sir," he added,
with a respectful touch of the cap visor as Captain Lane appeared,
"there isn't a man but that's glad he's going to West Point, and that
wouldn't like to see him with us again as our Lieutenant."

"But I'm not in yet, Sergeant," laughed Geordie. "There is Mr.
Breifogle to be considered. If he passes, there'll be no room for me;
and if he fails, why, I may too. In that event, I'll have to come back
and 'list just as soon as I'm eighteen."

And yet Geordie felt no such misgiving as he sat silently in the
dark corner of the ambulance, choking down some troublesome lumps
that had risen in his throat, and made his eyes blind as his mother's
arms were unclasped about his neck. The principal of the school which
young Breifogle had been attending for two years had told Mr. McCrea
that the boy was neither apt nor studious, that he had twice failed in
his examinations for promotion to higher grade, and that only after
infinite pains and much help had he been able to answer the sample
questions enclosed with his letter of appointment. When asked why old
Mr. Breifogle did not withdraw his son from a race in which he had no
chance, the master laughed.

"Breifogle is like a great many of our people who have become suddenly
rich," said he. "He thinks money and a political pull will do anything.
He refuses to believe that West Point is governed by rules that
even the President cannot violate. He is confident that all that is
necessary is for him to go on with Fritz in June, and the examiners
will not dare reject him, especially if Congressman Pierce is there,
too."

Now this was no exaggeration. Mr. Breifogle really thought it a very
unjustifiable thing in an army officer, supporting a family on so small
a salary, to undergo the expense of sending George all the way to West
Point and back, for back he felt sure he would have to come. It was
still worse to send him ahead of time and pay board and school bills.
He and Fritz would not go until June.

"I'm really sorry for the old fellow," said McCrea; "he's so thoroughly
earnest and honest in his convictions. It isn't his fault, either.
It is part of the stock in trade of many politicians to make their
constituents believe that for the benefit of their special friends
they have it in their power to set aside laws, rules, or regulations.
I haven't a doubt that Pierce has made the old man believe he 'stands'
in with the Secretary of War and the Superintendent of the Academy, and
that Fritz will go through West Point with flying colors. It will cost
Breifogle nearly a thousand dollars to find out his mistake."

This was several years ago, it must be remembered, in the days when all
candidates were required to present themselves for examination at the
Point instead of appearing before boards of army officers at convenient
garrisons throughout the country, as is the case to-day.

"No, Geordie, my boy," said McCrea, in conclusion, "I don't like to
take comfort in another man's misfortunes, but there is no chance
whatever for young Breifogle and every chance for you. All you have to
do is study and you'll win. I have said as much to the old man, for he
stopped me at the bank the other day and asked what I thought of the
case, and I told him frankly. For a moment he looked downcast; then he
brightened up all of a sudden, laid his finger alongside his nose, and
winked at me profoundly. 'Vell, you yust vait a leetle,' he said, and
turned away. I've no doubt he thinks I'm only trying to bluff him out
in your interest."

Two days more, and George, standing on the rear platform of the
Pullman, looking down with no little awe upon the swollen, turbid,
ice-whirling waters of the Missouri, far beneath the splendid spans
of the great railway bridge. Another day, and his train seemed to
be rolling through miles of city streets and squares before it was
finally brought to a stand under the grimy roof of the station at
Chicago. Here from the windows of the rattling omnibus that bore him
across the town to the depot of the Michigan Central he gazed in
wonderment at the height of the buildings on every side. Early the
next morning he was up and dressed, and just before sunrise stepped
out on the wooden staging at Falls View, listening to the voice and
seeing for the first time the beauty and grandeur of Niagara. A few
minutes later, looking from the car window, he seemed to be sailing in
mid-air over some tremendous gorge, in whose depths a broad torrent
of deep green water, flecked with foam and tossing huge crunching
masses of ice, went roaring away beneath him. _Such_ a letter as he
wrote to mother that morning, as hour after hour he sped along eastward
over bands of glistening steel, flying like the wind, yet so smoothly
that his pen hardly shook. Think what a revelation it must have been
to that frontier-bred boy, whose whole life had been spent among the
mountains or prairies of the Far West, to ride all the morning long
through one great city after another, through the heart of Buffalo,
Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany. The Mohawk Valley seemed one
long village to him, so unaccustomed were his eyes to country thickly
settled. The Hudson, still fettered with ice above the railway bridge
and just opening below, set his heart to beating, for now West Point
lay but a hundred miles away. How the train seemed to whiz along
those bold, beautiful shores, undulating at first, but soon becoming
precipitous and rocky! Many people gazed from the westward windows at
the snow-covered Catskills as the afternoon began to wane; but Geordie
had seen mountains beside which these were but hillocks. The clustering
towns, the frequent rush of engines and cars, the ever-increasing
bustle, however, impressed him greatly. Every now and then his train
fairly shot past stations where crowds of people stood waiting.

"Didn't they want to get on?" he asked the Pullman porter.

"Oh yes, sir, wanted to bad 'nough; but, Lord bless you, dis train
don't stop for them: they has to wait for the locals. We runs a hundred
trains a day along here. Dis train don't even stop where you gets off,
sir; that's why you have to change at Poughkeepsie, the only place we
stop between Albany and New York."

Surely enough, they rolled in presently under lofty bluffs under a
bridge so high in the air that its trusses looked like a spider-web,
and then stopped at a station thronged with people; and Pops, feeling
not a little bewildered, found himself standing with his hand luggage,
looking blankly after the car that had borne him so comfortably all
the way from Chicago, and now disappeared in the black depths of the
stone-faced tunnel to the south, seeming to contract like a leaking
balloon as it sped away. Hardly was it out of sight when another train
slid in to replace it, and everybody began tumbling aboard.

"This for Garrisons?" he asked a bearded official in blue and brass
buttons.

A nod was the answer. Railway men are too busy to speak; and Pops
followed the crowd, and took a seat on the river-side. The sun was well
down to the westward now; the Hudson grew broader, blacker, and deeper
at every turn; the opposite shores cast longer shadows; the electric
lights were beginning to twinkle across the wide reach at Newburg;
then a rocky islet stood sentinel half-way across to a huge rounded
rock-ribbed height. The train rushed madly into another black tunnel,
and came tearing forth at the southern end, and Pops's heart fairly
bounded in his breast. Lo! there across the deep narrow channel towered
Crow's Nest and Storm King. This was the heart of the Highlands. Never
before had he seen them, yet knew them at a glance. What hours had he
not spent over the photograph albums of the young graduates? Another
rush through rocky cuts, and then a smooth, swift spin around a long,
gradual curve, lapped by the waters of the Hudson, and there, right
before his eyes, still streaked with snow, was West Point, the flag
just fluttering from its lofty staff at the summons of the sunset gun.

Ten minutes later and the ferry-boat was paddling him across the
river, almost the only passenger. The hush of twilight had fallen. The
Highlands looked bare and brown and cheerless in their wintry guise.
Far away to the south the crags of Dunderberg were reverberating with
the roar of the train as it shot through Anthony's Nose. The stars
were just beginning to peep out here and there in the eastern sky, and
a pallid crescent moon hung over against them in the west. All else
was dark and bleak. The spell of the saddest hour of the day seemed to
chill the boy's brave heart, and for the first time a homesick longing
crept over him. This was the cheery hour at the army fireside, far out
among the Rockies—the hour when they gathered about the open hearth
and heaped on the logs, and mother played soft, sweet melodies at the
piano, often the songs of Scotland, so dear to them all. Pops couldn't
help it; he was beginning to feel a little blue and cold and hungry.
One or two passengers scurried ashore and clambered into the yellow
omnibus, waiting there at the dock as the boat was made fast in her
slip.

"Where do you go?" asked the driver of the boy.

"Send my trunk up to the hotel," said Geordie, briefly. "I'm going to
walk."

They had figured it all out together before he started from home, he
and Mr. McCrea. "The battalion will be coming in from parade as you
reach the Point, Geordie, if your train's on time." And the boy had
determined to test his knowledge of topography as learned from the
maps he had so faithfully studied. Slinging his bag into the 'bus,
he strode briskly away, crossed the tracks of the West Shore Road,
turned abruptly to his right, and breasted the long ascent, the stage
toiling behind him. A few minutes' uphill walk, and the road turned
to the left near the top of the bluff. Before him, on the north, was
the long gray massive façade of the riding-hall; before him, westward,
another climb, where, quitting the road, he followed a foot-path up
the steep and smoothly rounded terrace, and found himself suddenly
within stone's-throw of the very buildings he sought. At the crest of
the gentle slope to the north, the library with its triple towers; to
its left, the solid little chapel; close at hand to his right front,
the fine headquarters' building; beyond that, dim and indistinct, the
huge bulk of the old academic building; and directly ahead of him,
its great windows brilliantly lighted, a handsome gray stone edifice,
with its arched doorway and broad flight of steps in the centre—the
cadet mess-hall, as it used to be termed, the Grant Hall of to-day.
His pulses throbbed as he stepped across the road and stood on the
flag-stones beneath the trees. A sentry sauntering along the walk
glanced at him keenly, but passed him by without a word.

[Illustration: "A SENTRY GLANCED AT HIM KEENLY"]

Suddenly there rose on the still evening air the tramp of coming
soldiery, quick and alert, louder and louder, swifter than the bounding
of his heart and far more regular. Suddenly through the broad space
between the academic and the north end of the mess-hall, straight as a
ruler, came the foremost subdivision, the first platoon of Company
A, and instantly in response to the ringing order, "Column right,"
from some deep manly voice farther towards the rear, the young cadet
officer in front whirled about and ordered "Right wheel." Another
second and around swept the perfect line in the heavy gray overcoats,
the little blue forage-caps pulled well down over the smooth-shaved,
grave, yet youthful faces dimly seen under the gaslight. Then on they
swept, platoon after platoon, in strong double rank, each in succession
wheeling again steadily to the right as it reached the broad flight of
steps, then breaking and bounding lightly to the top, every man for
himself, until, one after the other, each of the eight subdivisions
was swallowed up in the great hall, echoing for a moment with chat
and laughter, the rattle of chairs, the clatter of knife and fork and
spoon, and then the big doors swung to, and Pops, for the first time in
his life, had seen the famous battalion which it was his most ardent
wish to join. For a moment he stood there silent, his heart still
beating high, then with one long sigh of mingled envy and gratification
he turned away.

That same evening, wasting no time after he had eaten a hearty supper
at Craney's, Geordie sought and found Lieutenant B——. Everything had
been arranged by letter; his coming was expected, and in a few moments
the boy and his instructor were seated in a quiet room, and Pops's
preliminary examination was really begun. In less than an hour Mr.
B—— had decided pretty thoroughly where his instruction was already
satisfactory and where it was incomplete.

"There's no question as to your physique, Mr. Graham," said the
Lieutenant, smiling to see the blush of shy delight with which the boy
welcomed the first use of the "handle" to his name. Hitherto he had
been Geordie or Pops to everybody. "I fancy it won't take long to make
you more at home in mathematics. To-morrow we'll move you into your
temporary quarters down at the Falls, and next day begin studies. There
are several candidates on the ground already."

And so within the week our young plainsman was practically in harness,
and with a dozen other aspirants trudging twice a day over the mile
of road connecting the Point and the village below; studying hard,
writing home regularly, hearing a great deal of information as to the
antecedents and expectations of most of his new associates, but partly
from native reticence and partly from due regard of McCrea's cautions,
saying little as to his past experiences, and nothing at all as to his
hopes for the future. "No matter what you do know of actual service,
Pops—and you have had more experience of army life than ninety-nine per
cent. of the corps—it is best not to 'let on' that you know anything
until you are an old cadet, even among your class-mates."

Some of his new associates Pops found congenial, some antagonistic; but
the one thing he kept in mind was that all were merely conditional.
Not until after the June examination would they really know who were
and who were not to be of "the elect." "Those who are most volubly
confident to-day," wrote McCrea, "are the ones who will be most apt
to fail. Keep your own counsel, 'give every man thine ear and few thy
voice'—and that's all."

George had some novel experiences in those days of preparation, and met
some odd characters among the boys, but as few of these had any bearing
on his subsequent history they need not be dwelt upon. With only one
did he strike up anything approximating an intimacy, and that was after
the first of May and was unavoidable, because the young fellow became
his room-mate, for one thing, and was so jolly, cheery, confident, and
enthusiastic, for another, that Graham simply couldn't help it.

Along in May his letters had a good deal to say about Mr. Frazier, and
by June the Falls began to fill up with young fellows from all over the
country. By this time the daily sight of the battalion at its drills
and parades was perfectly familiar to those on the ground, and yet
the gulf between cadets and candidates seemed utterly unbridgable.
Dr. Graham had thought it a good thing for Geordie to go with letters
of introduction from Colonel Fellows, of Fort Union, to his son, a
Second Class man, or from Major Freeland, of Bridger, whose boy was
in the Third, but McCrea said: "No; there is just one way to win the
respect and good-will of the corps of cadets," he declared, "and all
the letters and all the fathers and uncles and even pretty sisters
combined can't win it any other way. The boy must earn it himself, and
it isn't to be earned in a month, either. Every tub stands on its own
bottom there, doctor. The higher a fellow's connections, the more he
has to be taken down. Leastwise, it was so in my time, and West Point
is deteriorating if it is any different now."

Strange, therefore, as it may seem, though he knew many a cadet by
sight and name, not one had George Graham become acquainted with
until the momentous 15th of June, when, with a number of other young
civilians, he reported himself in a room in the eighth division of
barracks to Cadet Lieutenant Merrick; was turned over to Cadet Corporal
Stone to be taken to the hospital for physical examination, and in
one of the surgeons recognized an old friend of his father's whom he
knew in Arizona, but who apparently didn't know Geordie from Adam. One
hundred and forty-seven young fellows entered the hospital hopefully
that day, and among these over twenty-five were rejected. Among those
who passed was Breifogle. The old gentleman himself was on hand in
front of the mess-hall, when next morning those who had passed the
scrutiny of the surgeons were marshalled thither to undergo the written
examination in arithmetic.

Promptly, under the eye of the Professor of Mathematics, a number of
young officers assigned the candidates to seats and set them at their
tasks. Geordie felt that his face was very white, but he strove to
think of nothing but the work in hand. Slowly he read over the twelve
problems on the printed page, then, carefully and methodically, began
their solution. Long, long before he was through he saw Frazier rise
and, with confident, almost careless mien, hand his complete work to
the secretary, and saunter out into the sunshine. Long before he had
finished he saw many another go, less jauntily, perhaps, but with quiet
confidence.

One by one most of Mr. B——'s pupils finished inside the allotted two
hours and a half; but Geordie, with the thoroughness of his race, again
and again went over his work before he was satisfied he, at least,
could not improve it. Then he arose, and trembling a bit despite
himself, handed his paper to the silent officer. A number, fully
twenty, were still seated, some of them helplessly biting their pencils
and looking furtively and hopelessly about them. One of these was
Fritz Breifogle, for whom the old gentleman was still waiting on the
walk outside. Some officers, noticing the father's anxiety, had kindly
invited him into the mess-parlor, and had striven to comfort him with
cooling drink and a cigar. He was grateful, but unhappy. Already it had
begun to dawn upon him that what he had been told of West Point was
actually true: neither money nor influence could avail, and Fritz was
still at his fruitless task when "the hammer fell."

Another day and the suspense was over. A score more of the young
fellows, who were still faintly hopeful at dinner-time, were missing
at the next muster of the candidates at retreat. Breifogle was gone
without a word to his alternate. The way was clear at last, and,
more madly than ever, Pops's heart bounded in his breast as in stern
official tone Cadet Corporal Loring read rapidly the alphabetical list
of the successful candidates—George Montrose Graham among them.




CHAPTER III


And now, with examinations over, and no remaining doubts or fears,
there was probably no happier boy in all the "menagerie" than Geordie
Graham. As for the hundred young fellows in civilian dress, "herded"
three and four in each room, and wrestling with their first experiences
of cadet life, it is safe to say most of the number were either
homesick or in some way forlorn. Nothing so utterly destroys the
glamour that hovers over one's ideas of West Point as the realities
of the first fortnight. Of his three room-mates _pro tempore_, Bennie
Frazier had already announced time and again that if a beneficent
Creator would forgive him the blunder of coming here at all, he'd
square accounts by quitting as quick as he possibly could. Winn, a tall
Kentuckian, wanted to resign, but was too plucky. Connell, a bulky
young Badger, had written two terrific screeds to his uncle, the member
from Pecatonica, denouncing the cadet officials as brutes, bullies,
and tyrants, which documents were duly forwarded with appropriate
complaint to the War Department, and formed the text for a furious
leader in the _Pecatonica Pilot_, clamoring for the abolition of West
Point. The letters were duly referred to the Superintendent United
States Military Academy for remark, and by him to the commandant of
cadets, by which time Mr. Connell was a duly accredited high private in
the rear rank of Company B, and had almost forgotten the woes of early
barrack days, and was not a little abashed and dismayed when summoned
before the grave, dignified Colonel to make good his allegations. It
took him just ten seconds to transfer any lingering resentment for the
cadet corporals to the avuncular M. C., whom with boyish inconsistency
he now berated for being such a fool as to make a fuss about a little
thing like that. Among the new cadets were a very few who, as sons of
army officers, knew perfectly well what they had to expect. These and a
number of young fellows who, like Graham, had come on months or weeks
beforehand and placed themselves under tuition, were well prepared for
the ordeal of the entrance examinations as well as for other ordeals
which followed.

Even among them, however, were many who looked upon life with eyes of
gloom. The ceaseless routine of drill, drill, of sharp reprimand, of
stern, unbending discipline, wofully preyed upon their spirits. Their
hearts were as sore as their unaccustomed muscles. But with Pops all
was different. He had reached at last the goal of his ambition. He had
won his way through many a discouragement to the prize of a cadetship.
Now he was ready, even eager, to be tried and tested in every way,
to show his grit, and to prove his fitness for the four years' race
for the highest prize of all, the diploma and commission. The drill
that made his comrades' muscles ache was a bagatelle to him. From
earliest boyhood he had watched the recruits at setting-up, and not
only learned and practised all, but with Bud and Dick for his squad
would often convulse the officers at Verde and Supply by his imitation
of Sergeant Feeny's savage Hibernian manner. The cadet yearling who
was drill-master of the four to which Pops was assigned saw at once
that he had a "plebe corporal"—a young fellow who had been pretty well
drilled—and all the more did he rasp him when anything went amiss. Many
of the new-comers had been through squad-drill at military schools or
in cadet companies, but never under such rigid, relentless discipline
as this. Every cadet drill-master carried the steel rammer of his rifle
as a drill-stick, and was just about as unbending as his rod of office.
Poor Frazier was in hot-water all the time—as well as in the sulks.

"I belonged to the high-school cadets for two years, and everybody
that ever saw us drill said we could lay over anything in the whole
country," he protested, "and now here's this measly little stuck-up
prig, that probably never knew anything about drill until he entered
here last year, correcting and finding fault with everything I do.
I ain't going to stand it, by thunder! I've written to my father to
come on again, and just have this thing attended to right off." And
Frazier's handsome boyish face was flushed with wrath, and clouded
with a sense of wrong and indignity. "It seems to me if I were in your
place I wouldn't stand being abused either, Graham. I heard Mr. Flint
snapping at you again this morning."

Pops was busily engaged dusting for the tenth time the iron
mantel-shelf and the little looking-glass. He half turned. "Wa-e-l," he
said, while a grin of amusement hovered about the corners of his mouth,
"Flint was all right, I guess. Your squad was just in front of us, and
when I saw Connell stumble over your heels and try to climb up your
back, I laughed out loud. He caught me chuckling."

"Yes, and abused you like a pick-pocket, by jingo! If my father were an
officer in the regular army, as yours is, it wouldn't happen twice to
me."

"No, nor to me either," chimed in Connell. "I'll bet you he'd sing a
mighty different tune if he knew you were the son of a Major."

[Illustration: THE AWKWARD SQUAD]

"Well, there's just where you're 'way off," answered Geordie, after
the manner of the frontier. "Of all places in creation this is the one
where one's dad cuts no figure whatever. I've often heard old officers
say that the boys who got plagued and tormented most in their time were
the fellows whose fathers were generals or cabinet ministers. Fred
Grant wouldn't have had half as hard a time if his father hadn't been
President. Frazier's whole trouble comes from letting on that he knew
all about drill before he got here; that's the truth of it. I get along
smoothly by pretending never to have known anything."

"Oh, a lot you have! If that snob Loring ever speaks to me as he spoke
to you this morning about laughing in the ranks, I'll—I'll just let him
have my fist between the eyes, and he'll see more stars than he ever
saw before, if he is a color corporal. What'll your father say when he
hears that he threatened to put you in a cell just for laughing when
that Pike County fellow knocked his hat off trying to salute?"

"Well, he didn't say cell, in the first place, and father wouldn't hear
it from me, at least, if he had. It's an understood thing at home that
they're to ask no questions, and I'm to tell no tales until plebe camp
is over and done with. Plebes don't begin to have the hard times now
that they had thirty years ago, and if they could stand it then, I can
now. All you've got to do is simply make up your mind to grin and bear
it; do just as you're told, and say nothing about it. If this thing
worries you now, when only our drill-masters and instructors get at
us, what are you going to do, Frazier, when you're marched over there
into camp next week and turned over to the tender mercies of the whole
corps?"

"I'm going to fight the first man that offers me an indignity of any
kind, by thunder!"

Geordie burst into one of his merry laughs, just as a light foot came
bounding up the iron stairway. Bang! A single knock at the door. Up
sprang the four boys, heels and knees together, heads up, eyes straight
to the front, arms and hands braced against the sides, the palms of
the latter turned outward as far as the youngsters could force them
and thereby work their shoulders back, each young fellow facing the
centre of the bare and cheerless room. Enter Cadet Corporal Loring, his
jaunty gray coat fitting like wax, not a crease nor a wrinkle anywhere,
every one of his three rows of bell buttons glistening, his gold
chevrons gleaming, his white collar, cuffs, gloves, and trousers simply
immaculate, everything so trig and military, all in such wondrous
contrast to the sombre garb of the four plebes. His clear-cut face is
stern and dignified.

"What is the meaning of all this noise?" he asks. "Who was laughing as
I came in?"

"I was, sir," promptly answers Graham.

"You again, Mr. Graham? This is the third time since reveille I've had
to reprimand you for chuckling like a school-boy—twice in ranks, and
now again at inspection. What were you laughing at this time, sir?"
inquired Mr. Loring, majestically.

"At something Frazier said, sir."

"_Mr._ Frazier, sir. Never omit the handle to a gentleman's name on
duty or in official intercourse. Only among yourselves and off duty can
you indulge in familiarity; _never_, sir, in conversation with superior
officers." (Oh, the immensity of distance between the plebe and the
yearling corporal!) "And you are room orderly, too, Mr. Graham, and
responsible for the appearance of things. Where should the broom be,
sir?"

"Behind the door, sir."

"Then where is it, sir?"

And for the first time poor Pops sees that in the heat of argument,
Frazier, dusting off his shoes with that implement, had left it across
the room in the alcove. Still, it was his own business to see that
it was in place, so he had nothing to say beyond, "I didn't notice it
until just now, sir."

"Exactly, Mr. Graham; if you had been attending to your duty instead
of giggling over Mr. Frazier's witticisms you would have escaped
punishment. Report at my office immediately after supper this evening,
sir." And then, after finding perhaps a pin-head of dust behind
the looking-glass, and further rebuking Mr. Graham for unmilitary
carelessness, the young gentleman proceeds to carry dismay into the
next room.

And that evening, after supper, as ordered, Pops tapped at the awful
door, was bidden to enter and listen to his doom. Cadet Lieutenant
Merrick sat in judgment. For levity in ranks, dust on mantel, broom out
of place at inspection, new Cadet Graham was directed to walk post in
the hall until drum-beat at tattoo.

Outside the door, standing meekly in the hallway, awaiting summons to
enter, were half a dozen of his comrades, about to be sentenced to
similar punishment for blunders of greater or less magnitude. Some
looked woe-begone, some foolish, some were laughing, but all assumed
the required expression of gravity as Mr. Loring came forth with his
victim. In two minutes our Geordie found himself slowly pacing the
hallway on the second floor, with strict orders to keep his little
fingers on the seams of his trousers, the palms of his hands to the
front, and to hold conversation with nobody except in the line of duty.
For a moment he could not but feel a little wrathful and disheartened,
but again McCrea's words came to his aid: "Remember that the first
thing that will be sorely tested is your sense of subordination—your
readiness to obey without question. No soldier is considered fit to
command others until he can command himself. They purposely put a
fellow through all manner of predicament just to test his grit. Don't
let anything ruffle your temper, and they will soon find you need
no lessons." And so, like a sentry, he patiently tramped his post,
listening to the music of the band at an evening concert out on the
Plain, and keeping watchful eye for the coming of cadet officials.
Along towards nine o'clock up came Cadet Lieutenant Merrick, commanding
the plebes; and "Pops," as he had been taught, halted, faced him, and
stood attention.

"Why are you on punishment to-night, sir?" was the question.

Pops colored, but answered promptly, "Laughing in ranks, broom out of
place, and some other things, sir."

"Yes, I remember. Go to your quarters now, and keep your face straight
on duty hereafter."

Involuntarily Geordie raised his hand in salute, as for years he had
seen the soldiers do after receiving orders from an officer, then
turned to go.

"One moment, Mr. Graham. Whose squad are you in?"

"Mr. Flint's, sir."

"Did he teach you that salute?"

"No, sir," stammered Geordie.

"Where did you learn it?"

"Among the soldiers, sir, in the garrison."

"Ah, yes, I've heard of your case. That'll do, sir."

[Illustration: PLEBE DRILL]

Back in his room Pops found his three comrades in excited discussion.
Something tremendous had happened. While Geordie, obedient to his
orders, had gone to report to the cadet officer, Frazier, exulting in
his knowledge of the Point, had persuaded Connell to trust himself to
his guidance and go out for a walk. For half an hour after returning
from supper the new cadets were allowed release from quarters, and
permitted to visit each other and stroll about the grounds as they
might see fit, but were cautioned not to venture over towards camp. The
Graduating Class had now been gone, with the happy furlough men, an
entire week. The rest of the corps, the new First and Third Classes,
had marched into their summer quarters over across the cavalry plain,
among the beautiful trees south of old Fort Clinton. The new cadets,
still in the garb of civil life, were "herded together," as the old
cadets expressed it, at the barracks, and thither the older cadets
now were forbidden to go. Except in the mess-hall, three times a day,
they were seen, therefore, only by their barrack instructors and their
squad drill-masters. As a result of this plan the wholesale system
of hazing, plaguing, and tormenting that prevailed at the Point some
thirty years ago was wellnigh prevented. Not so, however, the impulse.
Just so long as human nature remains as it is and has been since
creation, "boys will be boys," and rare indeed are the boy-natures
which know not the longing to play tricks upon new-comers, especially
at school or college. Even among mature men the impulse lingers. Added,
therefore, to the line of demarcation mentioned in the interest of
discipline between the plebe and the upper-class man there ever exists
the temptation to have sport at the expense of the new-comers, and only
by most stringent measures has the spirit been controlled to the extent
that it is.

So long as Geordie and his comrades kept to the neighborhood of the
barracks, however, they were safe. A few of their number had been run
up into the rooms of the yearlings the day before camp, where they
were instantly surrounded by a frantic mob of young fellows mad with
exultation at being at last released from plebehood, and eager to
try on the new boys the experiments lavished on them a twelvemonth
previous. The officer in charge caught sound of the affair, however,
and made instant descent upon the division, only, of course, to find
the suspected room deserted, and all the others crowded by old cadets,
and the only faces that looked in the faintest degree conscious
of guilt or wrong were those of the luckless plebes themselves,
who, cautioned against entering the barracks of the elders, were
nevertheless caught in the act, and could never explain any more than
they could help their presence on dangerous and forbidden ground.

Benny Frazier was loud in his ridicule of Winn, who was one of the
party entrapped. No yearling and no squad or party of yearlings could
get him where he didn't mean or wish to go, he frequently said; and
for no other reason than that he had been officially warned to keep
away from camp had Benny become possessed with the longing to cruise
thither. Old cadets couldn't cross sentry posts and nab them, he
argued. "We'll just aggravate them by coming so near, and yet keeping
aloof." Poor, crestfallen, indignant Benny! He and Connell had sallied
forth, had gone strolling over the plain and along the south side of
camp, between the field battery and the tents, had smilingly declined
the eager invitation of the yearlings, who crowded down along the post
of the sentry on Number Five, urging them to enter and make themselves
at home. In the consciousness of his superior wisdom Benny had even
ventured upon an expressive gesture with his thumb at the tip of his
nose, his fingers wiggling in air. Poor boy! There were instant and
stentorian shouts for the corporal of the guard. Down at a run from
the guard-tent came a patrol. Eager hands pointed the way; eager
voices clamored for their arrest. Benny and Connell were surrounded
in an instant. Glistening bayonets were levelled at their throbbing
hearts. "March!" was the order, and amid the jeers and rejoicing of a
hundred young scamps in gray and white the two poor plebes were sternly
marshalled to the guard-tents, and into the awful presence of the cadet
officer of the day, charged with having disobeyed the sentinel's order
not to pass between the guns, and, far worse, of having made insulting
gestures to a sentry in the solemn discharge of his duty. It was an
impressive moment. There stood the stern young cadet captain in his
tall plume and crimson sash and gold-laced sleeves, astounded at the
effrontery of these young yet hardened reprobates.

"Is this possible?" he demanded, slowly, impressively. "Who and what
are you who have dared to insult the sacred office of the sentinel,
the soldier to whose lightest word even the commander-in-chief must
show respect? Who and what are you?"

"We didn't mean any harm," whimpered Benny. "We're only new cadets."

"_What!_"

And here every one in the surrounding group—officer of the day, officer
of the guard, corporals and privates, awed spectators—all fell back
into attitudes expressive of horror and dismay.

"_What!_" exclaimed the cadet captain. "Are you mad? Mad!" he
continued. "Is it credible that you, chosen by the deluded
Representatives of your States to represent a proud community in an
honorable profession—you dared to signalize your admission here by one
of the most flagrant offences known to military law? Send at once for
the Superintendent, Officer of the Guard. This is beyond my powers.
Into the guard-tent with them! Batten down the walls. Station sentries
at each side, Mr. Green. Put two of your most reliable men at the door,
with orders to shoot them dead if they stir a muscle. Orderly, go at
once for the commandant, and warn the officers that mutiny has broken
out among the new cadets."

And so in another instant the luckless boys were bundled into the
guard-tent, with bristling bayonets at every opening, with sentries on
every side discussing in awe-inspiring tones the probable fate of the
mutineers. And here might they have been held in limbo for hours had
not Cadet Corporal Loring found them absent at inspection, and learned
from Mr. Winn, sole representative of the quartet, that Frazier had
invited Connell to take a walk, and shrewdly suspecting that they had
been trapped over at camp, had reported matters to Mr. Merrick, his
immediate superior, and was sent over to the rescue. Of course, on
hearing the nature of their crime, he too was properly shocked, and
could find no words to express his consternation. All the same, he got
them out of the guard-tent and over to barracks before the army officer
on duty as commandant of new cadets happened in, and had barely time to
get them to their room before that gentleman came to inquire if their
charges were all safe for the night. Pops found Connell grievously
alarmed, but Frazier was only loudly indignant.

"All I'm afraid of is that now I won't get in the first squad to have
muskets," he said. "We were going to have 'em in the morning."

But when morning came it was Geordie, not Frazier, who was put in the
first squad, and Benny couldn't understand it. He who had been the best
soldier of the high-school cadets was left behind.




CHAPTER IV


Drill, drill, drill! Up with the dawn, rain or shine; hurrying through
their soldier toilets; rushing down the iron stairways and springing
into rigid attention in the forming ranks; sharply answering to the
rapidly called roll; scattering to their rooms to "spruce up" for
inspection; sure of reprimand if anything went amiss, sure of silence
only if all were well. Sweeping and dusting; folding, arranging, and
rearranging each item of their few belongings; stumbling over one
another's heels at first, yet with each succeeding day marching to
meals with less constraint and greater appetite; spending long hours
of toil and brief minutes of respite; twisting, turning, wrenching,
extending, developing every muscle, most of them hitherto unsuspected
and unknown; bending double, springing erect, roosting on tiptoe,
swaying forward, backward, sideways, every ways; aching in every bone
and joint, sore in every limb, yet expected to stick to it through
thick and thin, until as days wore on and pains wore off, and all that
was sore, stiff, and awkward grew little by little to be supple, easy,
and alert. Wondrous indeed is the transformation wrought in two weeks
of such drill under such drill-masters. The 1st of July arrived; George
Graham and his fivescore plebe comrades had now spent a fortnight under
surveillance and discipline strict and unrelenting as that of the days
of grim old Frederick the Great, except that it tolerated no touch of
the corporal's cane, no act of abuse. Sharp, stern, fiercely critical
were the young cadet instructors, but after the first few days of
soreness the native elasticity returned to both body and soul, the boys
began to take heart again, and a spirit of rivalry to develop between
the drill squads.

To Geordie the hours of soreness of spirit had been few as those of
physical suffering. His years of life among the soldiers had prepared
him for much that he had to encounter, and pride and pluck sustained
him when wearied by the drills or annoyed by the sharp language of
his instructors. But with poor Benny Frazier all was different. A pet
at home, and the brightest scholar of the high-school of his native
city; moreover, the boy officer of the high-school battalion, of whom
it was confidently predicted that "He would need no drilling at all
at West Point"; "He'd show those cadet fellows a thing or two they
never dreamed of"—it was gall and wormwood to his soul to find himself
the object of no more consideration at the Point than the greenest
"country jake" from Indiana or Dakota; and to Benny's metropolitan
mind anything from either Western commonwealth could be nothing but
green. What made matters worse for Frazier was the fact that his father
and mother had accompanied him to the Point on his arrival, and with
pardonable pride, but mistaken zeal, had sought to impress upon the
minds of such officers, cadets, and relatives of other plebes as they
chanced to meet the story of Benny's manifold excellences as soldier
and scholar—oft-told tales of how General This or Professor That
had declared him the most accomplished young captain they had ever
seen. Then poor Mrs. Frazier, who had pictured for her beloved boy
a reception at the hands of the authorities in which gratification,
cordiality, and respect should be intermingled, was simply aghast to
find that he must take his stand with his fellows at the bottom of
the ladder. Luckily for Benny, his parents' stay was limited to three
days. Unluckily for Benny, they remained long enough to see him at his
first squad drill, side by side with two unmistakably awkward boys, and
faring but little better. Such was her grief and indignation that the
good lady declared to acquaintances at the hotel that her boy should
be drilling that horrid little martinet instead of being drilled by
him—and such speeches are sure of repetition. Before Benny was a week
older he was known throughout the battalion as "the plebe who had
come to drill the corps of cadets," and nothing could have started
him worse. One can only conjecture what the fond but unwise mother
would have said could she have seen, a fortnight later, that boys
who had never drilled at all—had never handled a musket—were grouped
in the first squad, and making rapid and soldierly progress, while
Benny was still fretting and fuming in the lower one. Yet what was so
inexplicable and inexcusable in her eyes was perfectly plain and simple
to those acquainted with the facts.

All over the Union now are military schools and National Guard
organizations in which the drill regulations of the regular army are
well taught and understood; but, on the other hand, there are many
schools and communities in which the strictly business system of
instruction insisted upon among all progressive soldiers has been
neglected in favor of something showy, catchy, pretty to look at, and
utterly useless and unserviceable except for spectacular purposes; and
as ill-luck would have it, Benny had been taught all manner of "fancy
drill" movements utterly at variance with those he was now to learn;
and so, poor boy, the nerves and muscles long schooled in one way of
doing things were perpetually tripping him in his efforts to master
another—he had to unlearn so much before he could learn even a little.
The green boys, on whom he looked with such pity at the start, knowing
no wrong methods, were speedily far ahead of him in acquiring the right.

And so the boy who had entered with the highest hopes and expectations
was now low on the soldier list and lowest in his mind. But for his
father's hard common-sense, Benny Frazier would have been only too glad
to resign and get out of it all and go home, as other disappointed
boys have done, and declare West Point a hotbed of narrow prejudice,
of outrageous partiality, and unbridled injustice; and Benny's mother
would have honestly believed every word of it. Connell, too, was ready
to sympathize with Frazier, and confidentially to agree with him that
Pops, the youngest of the four room-mates, owed his rise to the first
squad entirely to the fact that his father was an officer; but when
four more boys were added to the first squad, and Connell was one of
them, he changed his views, and decided that only merit governed those
matters, after all. He began to pluck up heart, too, for he and Graham
were among the first to be marched over to the commissary's to try on
the new gray fatigue uniforms, and Mr. Loring's squad all appeared in
shell jackets and trousers before Winn and Frazier had cast off their
civilian garb.

By July 1st, however, all were in fatigue dress, and consolidated in
half a dozen squads for drill purposes. By this time, too, they could
march to and from the mess-hall in stiff but soldierly fashion; and
still, hour after hour, the relentless drills went on. Only on Saturday
afternoons and on the long, beautiful, peaceful Sundays was there
really time and opportunity for rest; and still the new cadets were
kept carefully secluded from the old, seeing little or nothing of the
battalion, except as, with its quick elastic step and its glistening
white uniform, with the brave young faces looking browner every day
under their snowy helmets, with drums and fifes playing their lively
quicksteps, the little column came marching down the shaded road, and
the plebes were drawn up in solid ranks until their future comrades
should pass by, and, springing up the mess-hall steps, give room for
them to follow.

Pops wrote his first long letter home the second Sunday after passing
the entrance examination, and this is something of what he said:

"We have lived together now just fourteen days, Frazier and Connell,
Winn and I, and are getting along pretty well. Of course we may be
scattered as soon as we get in camp, for Winn is tall, and will be
put in A or D company. Connell wants to live with his statesman, Mr.
Foster, in B. If Frazier and I get into the same company we will tent
together, most likely. He asked me to, and said he could fix it. We
got our fatigue uniforms Thursday, Connell and I, and were almost the
first, too, because of being in Mr. Loring's squad for drill. He is
very sharp and severe, and some of our class don't like him a bit; but
thus far we get along all right. I'm so pleased to be in the first
squad to get rifles I don't mind his manner. Of course it helped a good
deal knowing the manual of arms, but they're a heap stricter here.
[Pops would drop into frontierisms at times.] If a thumb or finger is
a bit out of place, the corporal makes more row about it than Sergeant
Feeny would over a recruit's coming out for guard with a dirty kit.

"I guess Frazier wishes he hadn't been so fresh [more slang, Pops]
at first. He was captain in the high-school cadets and head of his
class, and rather held over our boys about the drill at first; said he
knew it all, and showed his school medals for best-drilled soldier,
etc.; but Mr. Loring gave him fits, and put him under Mr. Flint, who
drilled me the first few days, and is as ugly and stern as he can be.
Frazier tried to make us believe the cadets were drilling him wrong;
but when he showed us how they did it where he came from I knew it
was he who was wrong; and he's had a lot of trouble, and wanted to
resign and quit, but his father wouldn't let him. He's getting on a
little better now, and says he'll be all right as soon as we are at
our studies in the fall. I guess he will, for he's been clear through
algebra and geometry and trigonometry, has been in France two years,
and speaks French perfectly, and we all think he's sure to be head of
the class, if he doesn't get disgusted; but he does that pretty easy.
Connell is slower, but has been well taught in the public schools.
Winn is a big, tall fellow from 'Kentuck,' as he calls it—good-natured
and jolly. He's been to college, and is nearly twenty; so is Connell;
and Frazier is eighteen, but a regular boy. He was awfully disgusted
at a trick the old cadets played on him last week; and they got hold
of some story about his thinking he ought to be drilling them instead
of their drilling him, and I expect he'll have a tough lesson when we
go into camp, where they can get at us and have fun. Don't expect any
long letters like this, mother dear, when once we are there, for there
won't be any undisturbed hours, as there are here in barracks this
lovely Sunday afternoon. I've been thinking of all you said to-day, and
tried to fix my thoughts on the service and the sermon in church; but
they would go with my eyes along the row of cadet officers, who always
sit in the centre aisle and at the end of the pews, and I found myself
wondering what each one was like, and whether the time would really
ever come when I, too, would wear the handsome chevrons and sash. I
could see just where Mr. McCrea must have sat when he was cadet captain
of Company C. It must have seemed such a 'come down' to go out into the
world and be nothing but a Second Lieutenant, whom anybody could rank
out of quarters and everybody order around. And yet that's what I hope
to do after four years—four long, long years of hard work; and there
isn't a happier, hopefuler boy in creation than this particular plebe.
But you just ought to see how blue most of them are!

"You asked me not to use tobacco, and I won't. It is forbidden in the
corps, but lots of them do it. Frazier has a hard time. He has been
smoking cigarettes two years, he says, though his mother doesn't know
it, and he had a lot in his trunk when he came, but had to turn them
all over to the old cadets. Winn chews. He says they all did at his
home. But Mr. Merrick made him surrender his tobacco—all he had; but
it's easy enough to get more at the Falls. Frazier says all you've got
to do is to pay some servant or drummer-boy. He has money in plenty,
for his mother supplied him. They are rich, I believe, and Frazier
says his father deposited two hundred dollars with the treasurer to
start with, instead of the one hundred required. Some boys haven't
that, and couldn't get it. Connell said he worked after hours for six
months to raise enough to bring him here, and had fifty dollars to
hand the treasurer. It hurts me to think how you and father must have
pinched and denied yourselves to raise the money to send me all the
way, and to pay all these expenses and the one hundred dollars deposit.
I know now why father couldn't afford the new uniform he so much needed
this year, and I don't know what you must have given up; but I love
you, and don't mean to let myself think how I envy Buddie this minute,
that he is there where he can hear your voice and see your face and
touch and kiss you."

But here Pops's eyes began to fill, and the letter had to be put aside.
He was glad of the loud, ringing summons on the ground-floor, "New
cadets, turn out promptly!" and just dashing his hand across his eyes,
went bounding down the stairs to take his station in the ranks.

And then came the momentous day of their move into camp. All were now
in complete fatigue uniform, many thoroughly drilled, all passably
so, and all eager to get into the battalion, and figure, in their own
eyes at least, as old cadets. Right after reveille roll-call on the
morning of the 2d of July they were bidden to stow the last of their
civilian clothing in their trunks, carry the trunks to the store-rooms,
roll their bedding into convenient bundles, and be ready to move the
moment breakfast was over. By half-past six the cavalry plain, as the
turfless eastern half of the broad open plateau is termed, was covered
with a long straggling procession of plebes, bearing their burdens over
to the lively and excited camp. They had been sized the night before,
the taller half of the class being assigned, as was then the custom, to
the flank companies of the battalion, while Pops and Connell were told
off into Company B, the right centre or color company. Frazier, always
luckless, as he said, was one of the plebes assigned to C Company,
and for a time it looked as though Pops were to lose his prospective
tent-mate. But Mr. Merrick, in brief official tones, announced that
exchanges would be permitted except from flank to centre companies, and
Frazier presently found a meek little fellow named Willis who said it
made no difference to him which company he went to, so he crossed over
and took Frazier's place in the C squad, and thus it happened that when
they trudged across the sentry post at Number Six, and were directed to
deposit their bundles in Company B's bustling street, Pops and Frazier
were once more together. Already Geordie was beginning to doubt the
wisdom of the arrangement, but he had given his promise to tent with
Benny, and would keep it. All along among the tents the yearlings could
be seen indulging in pantomime, expressive of the liveliest delight
at these accessions to the ranks. Pops could see them pointing out
Frazier, and hear exclamations: "There's the plebe that ought to be
drilling the corps," "Major-General Frazier," etc., and low laughter
and chuckles. But all this was done covertly; for Lieutenant Allen, the
army officer commanding the company, was standing close at hand with
Cadet Captain Leonard, supervising the assignment of tents. Mr. Merrick
had handed the cadet captain a list of names of those assigned to his
company, twenty-eight in all, and that young soldier was now keenly
looking over his new men. Pops, saying nothing to anybody, was standing
quietly by his bundle of bedding waiting for orders; but Frazier, who
had more "cheek," as Connell expressed it, and less discretion, did not
hesitate to step up to Lieutenant Allen, and say, "Mr. Graham and I
would like to tent together, sir."

The officer turned. "Which is Mr. Graham?" he asked. "Call him here."

And so in another moment Pops found himself standing attention to his
company commander and instructor.

"I am told you wish to tent with Mr. Frazier. Is that the case?"

Geordie colored. The question was so pat and what soldiers call
point-blank. He could not truthfully say that he really wished to share
Frazier's fortunes as a tent-mate. In the pursuance of the policy
he had mapped out for himself he would rather have lived with some
one less likely to be the recipient of much attention from the old
cadets—some one less apt to be perpetually saying or doing something to
invite their especial efforts. Mr. Allen saw his hesitancy, and spoke
kindly.

"If you think of any one else you would rather tent with, I presume
that it can be arranged."

"No, sir," answered Geordie, finding voice at last. "I had thought of
no one else. I promised Mr. Frazier."

"Very well, sir. Mr. Leonard, put this young gentleman and Mr. Frazier
in the same tent—two more with them. Have you any choice, Mr. Graham?"

"No, sir."

And then again appeared Frazier, eager to speak. "Connell and Foster,
sir, would like to tent with us."

The cadet officer looked interrogatively at his superior. Mr. Allen
briefly nodded.

"Take that one, then," said Mr. Leonard, shortly, indicating a vacant
tent on the south side of the company street, at about the middle of
the row.

"Come on, boys," said Frazier, eagerly, assuming the leadership of his
squad as though by vested right, and then was brought up standing by
the voice of his young captain.

"Mr. Frazier," said he, "the first lesson you have to learn is that
very new cadets should only be seen, not heard; and when you are heard,
sir, don't again allude to members of the corps of cadets of the United
States Army as _boys_. You are here to be men, if it's in you. If it
isn't, you're apt to get out of it, sir."

And with this withering welcome to his company, poor Frazier was
permitted to go.

"That's another young snob, that fellow Leonard!" he confided to his
comrades, in low tone, as they were depositing their few goods and
chattels in their eight-by-ten domain. "I'll pay him off for that yet,
see if I don't." Whereat Pops and Connell exchanged glances and grins.

[Illustration: "'TAKE THAT ONE, THEN,' SAID MR. LEONARD"]

It took little time to arrange their canvas home in the prescribed
military order. Pops was a veteran campaigner, and had slept in many
a tent or bivouac in the Far West, so the quarters that struck his
comrades as crowded were almost palatial to him. When they placed
their loads in front of it at six forty-five, all they saw was a
trimly-pitched wall-tent, the walls themselves neatly looped up so as
to allow the air to circulate freely, the tent and its "overcoat,"
or fly, both stretched taut and smooth, without crease or wrinkle, a
square, smooth, six-inch-high platform or floor covering the ground
from front tent pole almost to the one in rear. An elongated wooden box
painted dark green, divided into four compartments, with lids opening
at the top, extended almost from front to rear of the platform on the
west side of the tent. This was to be their chest of drawers. A wooden
rod hung about eighteen inches under the ridge-pole; this was to be
their wardrobe, and of other furniture there was none. Under the brief
instruction of a cadet corporal they began with the rudiments of their
military house-keeping. First, their four big double blankets were
folded in a square very nearly four feet across, and with the folded
edges to the front and inside, accurately piled one upon the other.
Then the four pillows in their white cases were evenly laid upon the
blankets. Then the four comforters or quilts, folded like the blankets,
were evenly laid on top, edges vertical, and that was the way in which
the beds were made up every morning after reveille. The pile thus
formed occupied the corner of the floor opposite the locker or chest
of drawers at the back of the tent. The locker was the name given the
dark green chest, and the "locker" had neither lock nor key. Under the
supervision of the cadet corporal the plebe quartet contributed the
items necessary to their summer house-keeping. A looking-glass, sixteen
by twelve, in a plain wooden frame, was hung on the front tent pole,
tilted a trifle forward at the top. A water-bucket was deposited at
the front edge of the platform close to the locker. A washbowl, bottom
outward, was leaned against the front edge of the platform close to the
bucket. A soap-dish was on the platform behind the basin. Candlestick,
candles, cleaning materials, etc., were deposited in a cylindrical tin
box that stood at the foot of the rear tent pole behind the base of the
arm-rack.

The four rifles, barrels to the front, were stood erect, the butt of
each in its wooden socket at the back of the floor, the muzzle poked
through a hole in the wooden shelf fastened about four feet from the
ground on the rear tent pole. The white webbing belts, supporting the
cartridge-box and bayonet-scabbard, were hung on pegs projecting from
the wooden shelf. Shoes, "neatly blacked and dusted at all times,"
were aligned at the back of the floor, toes to the front. Such books
as were allowed were piled on the floor at the back end of the locker.
All woollen uniforms, overcoats, rubber coats, etc., were to be hung on
the hanging-pole. All white trousers, sheets, underclothing, collars,
cuffs, gloves, etc., to be stored, each man's in his own locker.
Brushes, combs, shaving utensils were stuck in loops tacked on the
inside of each lid. The black full-dress shakos were, when procured, to
be neatly placed on the shelf of the rear pole, ornaments to the front,
and forage-caps hung on the owners' pegs. There was a place, howsoever
small, for everything, and everything was to be kept in its place.

By the time the first drum was beating for troop parade everything
was in spick-span order. The officers had gone about their duties,
and a group of yearlings, looking as though each and every one had
just stepped from a bandbox, so far as his dress and equipments were
concerned, quickly formed in the company ground in front of the
newly occupied "plebe hotels," the very imp of mischief grinning in
the sun-tanned faces of the younger and more boyish members, but
one and all full of the liveliest interest in the appearance of the
new-comers and their household affairs. Comment and criticism, advice
and suggestions, more or less valuable, were showered on every plebe;
but even while silently and good-humoredly submitting to his fire of
remarks, Pops could plainly see that no tent was so surrounded as
their own. It really seemed as though every Third Class man and many
a senior in Company B, reinforced by strong detachments from other
companies, had come to claim the acquaintance of Major-General Frazier,
and furthermore that the luckless Benny, instead of maintaining
good-humored reticence, and speaking only when he had to, was rapidly
adding to the array of charges laid at his door by trying to be
smart in reply. The sudden batter of the second drum transferred the
laughing, chaffing crowd into two silent, statuesque ranks, and for the
rest of that momentous hour, while doing his best to give his whole
thought to drill and duty, Geordie Graham found himself thinking, "Just
won't we catch it to-night!"




CHAPTER V


The dusk of evening had fallen on the Point when the battalion broke
ranks, returning from supper. A few minutes later, a hundred strong,
came the column of plebes, marching by fours, looking even more than
usually sombre now in their suits of gray, contrasting with the white
trousers and natty bell-buttoned coatees of the corps, and feeling,
doubtless, more than usually solemn in anticipation of the possible
experiences ahead of them. First night of plebe camp is a thing not
soon to be forgotten, even in these days when pitchy darkness no
longer shrouds the pranks of the yearlings, and official vigilance and
protection have replaced what really seemed tacit encouragement and
consent of over thirty years ago. Then it was no uncommon thing for the
new cadet to be dragged out ("yanked," was the expression in vogue)
and slid around camp on his dust-covered blanket twenty times a night,
dumped into Fort Clinton ditch, tossed in a tent-fly, half smothered in
the folds of his canvas home, tumbled by his tormentors about his ears,
ridden on a tent pole or in a rickety wheelbarrow, smoked out by some
vile, slow-burning pyrotechnic compound, robbed of rest and sleep, at
the very least, after he had been alternately drilled and worked all
the livelong day. Verily, the hardening process of the early sixties
was a thing that might well be frowned down upon and stamped out, but
it took stringent measures to effect it. In great measure the deviling
system was, so far as its most harmful features were concerned, but the
ghost of its old self when Ralph McCrea entered the Academy just after
the Centennial year. Then little by little means were taken to make the
process still more difficult to the perpetrators, until twenty years
after the War of the Rebellion hazing became indeed hazardous. Officers
were kept on duty and on the alert in camp at all hours. Gas-lamps
were placed along the sentry post. In every way the authorities could
foresee the plebe was protected from the more active torment of the old
days. But so long as boys will be boys some modification must exist;
and as for the year of probation which the new-comer must pass—the year
in which he is taught in every conceivable way that he is a creature
far apart from the rest of the corps, a being to be drilled, trained,
disciplined, badgered, even at times bullied—it is really a year of
most valuable experiences, perhaps the most valuable of the four. It is
this that teaches him that no matter what may be the wealth or social
standing of his relatives, he is no better than the humblest clodhopper
of his class. It is this year that teaches him to look to his own
class-mates and no others for comrades and chums. It is this that
teaches him silence, patience, and fortitude. Nine out of ten of the
plebes and their relatives pronounce it inhuman and barbarous so long
as it applies to them or theirs. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, however,
uphold it so soon as their plebehood is done.

All this George Graham fully understood, and was ready to bear his part
in without a murmur. Not so his friend Benny. That young gentleman
had been too long the prize boy at school and the spoiled boy at home
to "come down gracefully." Nothing could convince him that the cadet
officers had not shown outrageous partiality to Graham and abominable
malice towards himself in the matter of advancement in the school
of the soldier. It was worse still when Connell stepped up into the
first squad. But now, argued Frazier, we're all starting fresh again.
We're all on a level to-day as B Company plebes, but the moment we are
completely uniformed and relieved from squad drill under such brutes
as Loring and Flint, and with our own company officers, I'll soon show
them I know a trick or two far beyond them. But the golden gift of
silence was something beyond Benny Frazier, and he couldn't keep his
hopeful predictions or his boyish boasts to himself. He had attracted
at the outset the attention of the whole class of yearlings, and, just
as Graham expected, their house-warming was all too well attended.

Two minutes after their return from supper this particular "plebe
hotel" was surrounded. The yearlings in force had come to call on
Major-General Frazier. No noise was made. Nothing, on their part, at
least, occurred to attract the attention of the army officers in charge
or the cadet officers of the guard. Indeed, the latter are most apt
to be particularly deaf at such times. The darkness gathered no more
quickly, no more noiselessly, than did the crowd. And doffing their
natty forage-caps, bowing with exaggerated politeness, cadets Cramer,
Cresswell, Daggett, Driggs, Elton, etc.—one might go alphabetically
through the list of the Third Class and hardly miss a name—begged the
honor of an interview.

Benny, standing well back within the tent, his hand on his heart,
bowed, smiled, and protested that nothing would give him greater
delight than to meet the entire class; expressed his sense of the high
honor paid him, regretted that his quarters were so contracted that he
could not invite them in, and was thereupon invited out, but begged
to be excused. Connell was lighting the candle, and Graham, seated
on the locker, was whimsically wondering what form the mischief would
take, when the broom came up from behind the locker in most mysterious
fashion. Match and candle both went out, and an instant later so did
Benny, projected by some mysterious force from behind.

Pops and Connell were conscious of the sudden arrival from under the
tent wall of three or four shadowy forms, and of smothered laughter
as Benny shot forward into the company street, to be instantly
ingulfed in a swarm of active young fellows in gray and white, through
whom it was impossible to break away. In an instant he was standing
attention, heels clamped together, knees straight, and with anything
but stiffness, for they were trembling violently, shoulders and elbows
forced back, little fingers on the seam of the trousers, head high, and
eyes straight to the front—the attitude of the soldier in the presence
of his superior officers as interpreted by his natural enemies, the
old cadets. And then began the mad confusion of question, comment, and
criticism; dozens talking eagerly at once, and all demanding reply,
still making very little noise. The suppressed tones could hardly be
heard beyond the company streets.

Benny's personal history from babyhood to date of admission at the
Point was matter of the liveliest interest. No detail escaped inquiry.
His military experiences as captain of the high-school cadets was a
theme on which it was no longer possible for him to remain silent. With
the recollection of his capture and incarceration in the guard-tent,
and Graham's friendly counsel to say nothing more than he had to, and
that in the simplest way, Frazier's propensity for putting his foot in
it followed him even here.

In the innocence of their parental hearts, Benny's father and mother
had brought to the Point certain newspaper clippings that had given
them huge delight at the date of their appearance and of Benny's
appointment. For several weeks he was the envied of all the boys in
Beanton, the proud possessor of a cadetship, the future general,
the present conquering hero; but if Mr. Frazier senior could have
imagined what woe those clippings were destined to bring to Benny's
door, he would gladly have consigned them, their compounders, and
compositors, to the plains. In her maternal pride poor Mrs. Frazier
had given copies to the mothers of other cadets less favored of
Providence, little dreaming to what base uses they would come. One of
these, a florid description of the review and drill of the high-school
cadets on the 10th of May, and the presentation of medals to the most
distinguished of the cadet officers, concluded with a glowing tribute
to the "Wonderful soldierly ability of Captain Benjamin Franklin
Frazier, the only son of the Honorable T. J. Frazier, of this city,
who was pronounced by the judges and many veterans present the most
remarkable drill-master and battalion commander they had ever seen. His
promptness, presence of mind, and fine military bearing, as well as his
accurate knowledge of the tactics, were all astonishing in one so young.

"The writer, who has frequently visited West Point, is free to say
that cadets of that famous school are not to be compared with the
high-school cadets in the precision and beauty of their drill, and _The
Examiner_ confidently predicts a brilliant career for the appointee
from the Sixth Congressional District, who will doubtless step at once
on donning the West Point uniform into the command of one of the cadet
companies of the national school."

The group of yearlings had constituted itself an examining board, and
was propounding most intricate and surprising problems to test Benny's
knowledge of military tactics. Suddenly a tall fellow came elbowing his
way through the throng.

"Mr. Frazier," said he, in tones at which every other voice was
stilled, "you represent the Sixth Congressional District of the
Pilgrim State, I understand."

"I do, sir," answered Benny, eyes still to the front, and wondering
what was coming next.

"Were you a member of the cadet corps of the Beanton High-school?"

"I was, sir."

"Then it can be no one but yourself to whom this article refers.
Gentlemen, fall back! Hold a candle here, somebody. Mr. Frazier, we
will now permit you to give an exhibition of your ability to read aloud
in the open air so as to be distinctly understood by your troops. Your
services as adjutant-general may be needed at any moment. Read this
carefully, now." And on a foot square of card-board poor Benny saw
before his startled eyes the very paragraph of all others Graham had
warned him against letting any old cadet get hold of. It was pasted on
the board. He could not tear it. Oh, what would he not have given to
burn every word and line! "Read, sir," ordered the cadet in authority,
evidently a First Class man.

"Read, sir," in solemn unison chorussed some fifty yearlings. In vain
he protested, in vain he begged off. The audience was inexorable.

In low tone at first, but elevating his voice in response to imperative
"Louder!" from every side, he tried to slur and scurry through, but
"Slower, sir." "Enunciate carefully, sir," were the next orders, and
he had to obey. Now the only interruption was a faint groan of dismay
from some apparently scandalized cadet. At last he finished, and
dropped the board and his eyes both in confusion. Dead silence for a
moment. Then the circle widened. The cadets, as though awe-stricken,
fell slowly back. The solemn voice was heard.

"And to think that this paragon has been mistaken for an ordinary
plebe! It is incomprehensible! Mr. Frazier—Captain Frazier—will you
have the goodness to read that just once more?"

Frazier would have refused, but some lingering grain of sense
told him the better course was now to obey. Once more he began,
his progress this time being punctuated by occasional muttered
exclamations—"Astonishing!" "Prodigious!" "I knew there was
extraordinary power in that face the first time I set eyes on it!"
"Merciful heavens! to think that we were on the point of asking a man
so distinguished to sing for us!" This was too much for Connell. From
the dark interior of the tent came a gurgle of suppressed laughter.
Instantly two or three yearlings heard him, heaved him up on his feet,
and hustled him forth into the company ground. Unparalleled audacity!—a
plebe laughing at the recital of the deeds of Major-General Frazier!
The circle gave way to right and left, and Connell was shouldered
into the midst, and made to stand facing his luckless tent-mate until
the second reading was finished. Then, even as poor Benny was hoping
that Connell's coming was to distract in a measure their attention
from himself, the same deep voice was heard declaring that this was
too important matter to be kept from the rest of the corps. "March
over to A Company!" was the word. Benny never knew how it was done.
In the twinkling of an eye in silence the mass began to move, Benny
and Connell borne helplessly along. Resistance was useless. Not a hand
was laid upon them, but not a gap was seen through which they could
escape. In another moment all B Company, except its plebe contingent,
reinforced by detachments of Third Class men from all over camp, was
crowded into A Company's street, and gravely presenting Major-General
Frazier to the officials of the right flank company, and demanding the
third reading of _The Examiner's_ clipping. Poor Benny! Not until the
tattoo drums began to beat far over across the Plain was he released
from limbo. During that time he had been exhibited in every street in
camp, had favored all four companies with extracts from his biography,
and was bidden to be able to recite it _verbatim et literatim_ on the
morrow on pain of having to read it ten times over for every slip.

Meantime, thanks to the overwhelming interest attaching to the arrival
in camp of their comrade, the general, Geordie and the bulk of the
plebe class were having a comparatively easy time. They sat or stood
guard over their few belongings in the darkness of their tents much
of the evening until turned out for roll-call. Occasionally some old
cadets would suggest that they "turn out the guard," form ranks, and
render the honors of war when Major-General Frazier and his escort
marched through the company street. A young gentleman with corporal's
chevrons on his sleeves called Mr. Graham's attention to the fact that
most of the water-buckets of the old cadets' tents needed replenishing;
and Pops said nothing, but took them two at a time to the tank down by
the sentry post of Number Three, filled and replaced them. This done,
he was invited to Mr. Proctor's tent to see how cadet beds were made
for the night, and, under Mr. Proctor's tutelage, spread the blankets,
etc., on the wooden floor, and was informed that at the sounding of
police-call after reveille in the morning he would receive further
instruction in the correct methods of cleaning up and putting in order
everything in and around the tents, on reporting in person to Mr.
Proctor. In all this Mr. Proctor's manner was grave and dignified. He
gave no orders, made no demands; could not be said to have exacted
of a new cadet the performance of any menial or degrading task,
the penalty for which, as well as for hazing, improperly molesting
or interfering with or annoying new cadets, was court-martial and
dismissal. Pops accepted his lesson without a word, and when tattoo
sounded and the plebes were assembled for the last time that evening,
forming on the general parade, as the open space between the right and
left wings of camp was termed, he felt that he had got off very easily.

"Now go to your tents; make down your bedding just as you were taught
in barracks; do not remove your shirts or drawers or socks; hang up
your uniforms where each man can get his own in an instant; put your
shoes and caps where you can get them in the dark, if need be; turn in
and blow your candle out before the drum strikes 'taps,' at ten. After
that, not a sound! Get to sleep as soon as you can, and be ready to
form here at reveille." So spake Cadet Corporal Loring, adding, "Break
ranks. March!" as required by the drill regulations of the day. And at
last poor Benny, ruffled and exhausted, was allowed to go to his tent.

"Oh, I'll get square with that gang! Just wait until I'm on guard some
night next week," whispered he to Pops. "You caught it nicely for
laughing, Connell. Next time perhaps you won't be so ready to chuckle
when they're making fun of a fellow's relatives."

In his general disgust Frazier was ready to growl at anybody who had
suffered less than he had. "Misery loves company" the world over.
Little time was wasted getting into their blankets for the night,
little more in getting to sleep. The last thing heard before the signal
for "lights out" was Benny's repetition of the vague threat, "Just wait
until I get on guard, then I'll show 'em."

And now followed three or four days of ceaseless drill and duty. The
plebes still "herded together," as the old cadets expressed it—formed
by themselves for roll-call, drill, and marching to meals. They were
granted a half-holiday after the chapel exercises on the glorious
Fourth, and Geordie spent the lovely afternoon with Connell and
others in a climb to the top of Crow's Nest, and in the enjoyment of
one of the most glorious views on the face of the earth. On the 5th
their drills in the school of the soldier were reduced to two, in big
consolidated squads, and the whole class began instruction at the field
battery south of camp at nine each morning, and then were marched to
the academic building at half-past ten, to be put through their paces
at the hands of the dancing-master.

Immediately after the return of the corps from dinner on the 5th,
Cadet Corporal Loring read from the list in his hand some twenty names,
Graham's among them, and followed it with the brief order to those
named to fall in at two o'clock. Comparing notes, it was found that
most of them were members of what had been called the first squad. No
one knew what it meant until just before police-call at four o'clock,
when the party came marching back to camp, each man burdened with
clothing. Frazier's face was a study when Pops and Connell returned to
the tent, hung their glistening new uniform coats on the rack, folded
their ten pairs of white trousers in the lockers, and tried the effect
of the natty dress hats in the little looking-glass. Like many another
boy, Benny was learning that there was a wide difference between
the official and the family estimate of his military aptitude. The
idea that twenty of his class-mates could be put in full uniform and
readiness for guard duty and he not one of them was something that had
not occurred to him as a possibility.

"Mr. Graham, get ready to march on guard to-morrow morning," said
Loring to Pops that evening just before retreat roll-call. "You, too,
Mr. Connell."

And that evening the plebes of B Company congregated for an hour about
the tent to see the preparations of their first representatives. In
some way the word had gone around that Graham was "getting a shine on
his gun" the like of which no one had seen before. Frazier, with others
of his class, luckless fellows who by unguarded use of their tongues
had made themselves conspicuous, were, as usual, entertaining a circle
of old cadets, who demanded songs, recitations, dissertations, anything
to keep them busy and miserable, and so it was tattoo before Frazier
came back to the tent. Almost the last thing given to Geordie by his
old friends of the cavalry before he came away from Fort Reynolds was
a complete kit for cleaning and polishing arms and accoutrements.
Many an hour of his boyhood had been spent watching the men at work
on their arms, pouches, boxes, sling-belts, etc., and learning how to
put the handsomest polish on either brown steel or black walnut. Buff
board, heel ball, beeswax, linseed oil—all their stock in trade he had
long since found the use of, and already his rifle and accoutrements
had been touched up as new cadets never saw them; but not until this
evening had he unboxed his trooper kit; and with a dozen class-mates
eagerly looking on, Geordie squatted on his pile of blankets and
worked away by candle-light. Ten of the plebe class had been warned
for guard, and notified to appear in full uniform so that they might
undergo preliminary inspection. Nearly ninety eager boys, still in
Quaker gray, swarmed about these distinguished and envied pioneers as
they successively arrived. But the greatest interest centred in the B
Company contingent. Graham purposely kept to his tent until the moment
before the assembly sounded, but even among the yearlings there were
nods of approbation and comments of "Well done, plebe," as he came
forth, catching the pompon of his shako in the tent-flap as he did so,
and blushing not a little in consequence. Connell, too, had patterned
by his friend's experience. Their cartridge-boxes had of course been
varnished, just as were those of the rest of the corps, but the bronzed
bayonet scabbards and their leather attachments wore a gloss and polish
new even to the eyes of the old cadets. Luckily for the two the voice
of Mr. Loring was heard ordering them to "Step out lively," and they
escaped for the moment the scrutiny and question of the yearlings.
But the whole plebe class heard a few minutes later Mr. Merrick's
"Very well indeed, Mr. Graham," at sight of the sturdy young fellow's
glistening equipments and snowy belts. Then he took the rifle which
Geordie had tossed up to the "inspection arms" of the old tactics, and
with evident surprise in his tone, as well as satisfaction, exclaimed:

"Where did you learn to clean a rifle like this, sir?"

"Out West among the soldiers," was the brief reply.

The commandant, with Lieutenant Allen, came along at the moment to
take a look at the first representatives of the new class for guard.
As luck would have it, Graham and Connell were about the last of the
ten, and were at the left of the squad. All looked neat and trim, and
Mr. Merrick had made his selection with care; but the expert eye rarely
fails to find something about one's initial appearance in uniform
that betrays the plebe. The Colonel made no comment until he reached
Connell. Then he turned to Mr. Allen.

"Very neat and soldierly, especially here on the left," he said.

Cadet Merrick, without a word, held up Graham's rifle. The Colonel took
it, glanced quickly along the polished weapon, and then at Geordie,
standing steadily at attention, with his blue eyes straight to the
front.

"You must have seen service, sir," he said, with a smile. "That's a
very handsome rifle," and handed it back.

"Who is that young gentleman?" asked he of Lieutenant Allen, as they
turned away.

[Illustration: "THE COLONEL GLANCED QUICKLY ALONG THE POLISHED WEAPON"]

And then—alas for all McCrea's kindly advice! alas for all his own
precautions!—our Geordie heard Mr. Allen's reply. It was meant to be
for the Colonel alone. It reached, however, the strained and attentive
ears of half the plebe contingent. His days of modest retirement were
at an end; his time for plague, pestilence, and torment was come.

"That's Mr. Graham, Ralph McCrea's protégé. You've heard of him before,
Colonel; that's 'Corporal Pops.'"

The instant the order "Break ranks!" was given, Benny Frazier rushed
upon Geordie with delight almost too eager, and loudly hailed him as
Corporal Pops. The pet name of his boy days had followed him to the
Point.




CHAPTER VI


It takes but little time for a boy to win a nickname in the corps of
cadets, though a lifetime may not rid him of it. Physical peculiarities
are turned to prompt account, and no account is taken of personal
feelings. Certain fixed rules obtain as to the eldest and youngest
of each class. They are respectively "Dad" and "Babe." Otherwise a
young fellow becomes "Fatty" or "Skinny," "Whity" or "Cuffy," "Beauty"
(if ugly), "Curly," or "Pinky," "Shanks" or "Legs," "Bones," etc.,
if in any way remarkable from an anatomical point of view; "Sissy,"
"Fanny," "Carrie," if rosy-cheeked and clear-skinned, whether otherwise
effeminate or not. All these, more or less, depended upon physical
charms or faults, and these are apt to be settled at the start. So,
too, such titles as "Parson," "Deacon," "Squire." Others come in as
lasting mementos of some unfortunate break in recitation or blunder in
drill.

But no term or title is so calculated to convey with it so much of
exasperation in the case of the plebe, strange as it may seem, as
one which is exclusively military. Just why this should be so it is
difficult to explain. The end and aim of West Point existence is the
winning of a commission that opens the way to a series, perhaps, of
military titles; yet let a plebe be saddled with some such appendage to
his name, and all the explanations in the world cannot save him from
misconception and annoyance.

From the time a new cadet is fairly in uniform and a member of the
battalion, he has perhaps no higher ambition than that of being made
a corporal at the end of his year of probation. It is indeed a case
where "many are called but few chosen." Four out of five are doomed to
disappointment, but the head of the class in scholarship stands not so
high in cadet esteem as he who heads the list of officers. To be made
senior corporal at the end of the first year, and, as such, acting
sergeant-major, or first sergeant throughout camp, in the absence of
the Second Class or furlough men, is to be the envied of almost every
other yearling; but to have conferred upon one in his plebe camp by
common consent the title of "Corporal" carries with it a weight of
annoyance little appreciated outside of the gray battalion; and it was
Geordie Graham's luck to begin his very first tour of guard duty with
this luckless handle—that, too, coupled with the diminutive of "Pops."

Even as he paced up and down the shaded path of Number Three, he could
hear the mischievous delight with which the old cadets pointed him out
as the new corporal, and could not but hear the somewhat malicious
allusions made by his own classmates, some of whom (for there is a
heap of human nature in every plebe class that has to be hammered out
of it in course of time) were not very sorry to see a cloud of worry
gathering over the first of their number to win praise for soldierly
excellence, and none were more ready—hard as it may be to say so—than
his tent-mate Frazier.

Geordie swallowed it all in silence, vigilantly walking the post
assigned him, paying strict attention to the instructions given him
every few moments by the officers of the guard. Time and again, as a
boy, he had played at walking post in front of the doctor's quarters,
punctiliously saluting officers in the daytime, and sternly challenging
after dark before being hustled off to bed. All this stood him in good
stead now. He had studied the cool, professional way of the regulars
on sentry duty, and looked far more at home on post this bright July
day than any of his class-mates. Both Lieutenant Allen, who was officer
in charge, and Cadet Captain Leonard, who was officer of the day,
said, "Very well indeed, sir!" as he repeated the long list of his
instructions.

It galled him to think that when gentlemen of their standing should
treat him with such respect, and when the general regulations of the
army provided that all persons of whatsoever rank in the service should
observe respect towards sentries, so many old cadets, lolling in the
shade of their tent-flies in Company A, so many class-mates skipping
along inside his post on the path leading to the shoeblack's or the
water-tank, should make audible comments about the "corporal on post."

His life had been spent on the frontier, where the safety of the camp
depended on the vigilance of the sentry, and where no man, high or low,
behaved towards a soldier on such duty except with the utmost respect.
He remembered what McCrea had told him, that even as a sentry on
post—indeed, more so at such times than at any other, so long as he was
green and unaccustomed to the duty—it was the habit of the old cadets
in the old days to "devil" and torment the plebe in every conceivable
way. But Geordie argued that he was not green. He knew the main points
of sentry duty as well as any cadet, though nowhere are the finer
points, the more intricate tests, so taught as they are at the Military
Academy.

It was actually his misfortune that he knew so much. Geordie Graham
might have been spared many an hour of trouble and injustice and
misrepresentation had he not been imbued with the soldier idea of the
sacred character of the sentinel. It was one thing to submit to the
unwritten laws and customs of the corps of cadets, so long as they
were applied to him in his personal capacity. It was a very different
matter, however, in his judgment, to be interfered with or molested as
a member of the guard.

His first "two hours on" in the morning passed without material
annoyance, for most of the corps were out of camp at drill. At
dinner-time, after marching down with the guard, he found his
class-mates at the B Company table, to which he had been assigned,
awaiting his coming with no little eagerness; but as the yearlings
began their quizzing the instant he took his seat and unfolded his
napkin, Frazier and Burns were forced to be silent. Connell had
remained with the relief posted at camp during the absence of the
battalion, so Pops had his fire to undergo all alone. The Third Class
men hailed him, of course, by his recently discovered title.

[Illustration: ON GUARD DUTY]

"Ah! the cavalry corporal of Camp Coyote!" exclaimed Mr. Riggs, the
nearest of his tormentors. "Corporal, suppose that you found your post
suddenly invaded at night, sir, by the simultaneous appearance of the
general-in-chief and staff on the east, the commandant and corporal of
the guard on the west, the superintendent and a brass-band on the
north, Moses and the ten commandments on the south, and the ghost of
Horace Greeley on the other side, which would you first advance with
the countersign?"

Mr. Woods, another young gentleman whose years at the Academy had
conferred upon him the right to catechise, wished to be informed what
Corporal Graham's—er—excuse me—Corporal Pops's—course would be in the
event of a night attack of Sioux squaws upon his post. A third young
gentleman demanded to be informed if he had ever been regularly posted
as a sentry before, and to this question Pops truthfully answered "No,
sir," and went on eating his dinner as placidly as he could, keeping up
a good-natured grin the while, and striving not to be ruffled.

But Frazier, smarting under his own worriments, jealous, too, of the
comments that he had overheard from the lips of fair-minded cadets, who
could not but notice Graham's easy mastery of sentry duty, was only
waiting for a chance to give Pops a dig on his own account. At last
the chance seemed to come, and Benny, eager to show old cadets and new
comrades both how much more a Beanton High-school cadet knew of sentry
duty than a frontier plebe, lucklessly broke forth:

"Nice blunder you made this morning, Graham, turning your back on the
officer of the day, instead of facing him and saluting!" And Benny
looked triumphantly about him. The other plebes within hearing pricked
up their ears, as a matter of course.

"Is that so?" asked Pops. "When was it?"

"Oh, you needn't pretend you didn't see him! I saw you; so did Green
here. Didn't I, Green? I spoke of it at the time. You looked right at
him as he came around from A Company street past the adjutant's tent,
and instead of stopping and presenting arms you deliberately turned
your back on him, and stood facing Fort Clinton while he passed along
behind you."

Alas, poor Benny! Even yet he had not begun to learn how dangerous a
thing was a little learning. Graham's reply was perfectly quiet and
placid.

"I was taught this morning that when an officer passed along in rear of
the post without attempting to cross it, simply to stand at a carry,
facing outwards. I never heard of its being done any other way."

"Ho, ho!" laughed Benny. "Why, the very first thing a soldier's taught
is to look towards the officer he salutes, and never to turn his back.
Ain't it so, Mr. Cross?" he asked, confidently and appealingly of the
corporal of the guard, who had arisen, listening with a grin on his
face while pulling on his gloves.

"You have a heap to learn yet, young man," was the withering reply. "A
sentry always faces outward in camp when an officer passes by, even if
he passes behind his post, in which case he doesn't even salute. I gave
Mr. Graham those orders myself, sir."

Pops was wise enough to hold his peace, and never admit that he knew
it all before; nor did he join in the burst of laughter at Benny's
expense. Frazier, indignant, discomfited, shamed again before them all,
glared wrathfully at his tent-mate, as though it were all his fault.

But it would never do to let a plebe come off with such flying colors,
argued Mr. Woods, of the yearlings. One after another, insistently, he
pressed Geordie with all manner of points in sentry duty, and all that
were not broad burlesque were answered correctly, though it was evident
that Pops was getting annoyed. At last, just before the order to rise
was given, the yearling leaned half-way across the table.

"Now, suppose I was to come, sir, in the dead of night to your sentry
post, and demand, as your superior officer, that you give me up your
gun, what would you do?"

There was strained silence among the plebes for a moment. Geordie's
blue eyes, blazing a little, were looking straight into the frowning
face of his tormentor.

"Do you mean without the countersign? Without being an officer of the
guard?"

"Exactly, sir. Simply as your superior officer—as an old cadet to a
plebe, sir."

The answer came in low tone, but without a quaver, and every man at the
table heard it.

"I'd let you have it, butt foremost, between the eyes."

The sudden order for Company B to rise, in the voice of the first
captain, put instant end to this exciting colloquy. Foster gave his
leg a loud slap of delight. Even Benny rejoiced in the display of
what he called "Graham's grit." Mr. Woods made a spring as though to
come around to Graham's side of the table, but Cadet Captain Leonard,
officer of the day, was standing not forty feet away, and his attention
was evidently attracted. A class-mate seized Woods by the arm.

"Not here, not now, Jimmy," he cautioned. "We'll 'tend to that plebe
later."

Before the guard broke ranks on its return to camp the battalion had
scattered, and the yearlings of Company B were in excited consultation.
A plebe had threatened to strike Woods, was the explanation, and in the
unwritten code that has obtained at the Point from time immemorial that
meant fight.

"Nothing can be done till he marches off guard to-morrow, Woods," said
the First Class man to whom the matter was referred. "That'll be time
enough to settle it."

But meantime Geordie was destined to undergo further experiences.

That morning at guard-mounting the junior officer of the guard
inspecting the rear rank had very rigidly scrutinized every item of
Graham's dress and equipment, handing back his rifle with a look of
disappointment, as though he really wanted to find something he could
condemn. Even a junior cadet lieutenant seems to consider it a mistake
to be compelled to approve of anything a plebe can do.

But presently along came the adjutant, to whom, as was customary,
those old cadets of the guard who desired to "try for colors" tossed
up a second time their rifles, inviting his inspection. Trying for
colors used to be quite a ceremony in itself. The color-line in camp
at West Point extends along the front of what is called the body of
camp and parallel with its western side. It is the line along which the
battalion holds morning and evening parade, and along which all four
companies stack their arms immediately after "troop." The color-bearer
furls the flag, and lays it upon the centre stacks; a sentry is
immediately posted, and there the colors and the stacks remain until 4
P.M., unless it should rain. All persons going in or out of camp must
pass around the flanks of the line, and in so doing raise the cap or
helmet in salute to the flag. It is the duty of the sentry on colors to
see that this is done. Even civilians who may be invited into camp by
officers are expected to show the same deference.

Now an ordinary member of the guard has to walk post eight hours
during his tour of twenty-four, two hours on and four off, but the
color sentries had only the time from about 8.45 A.M. to 4 P.M. to
cover—less than two and a half hours apiece—and at night they were
permitted to go to their own tents and sleep, while their comrades of
the guard were walking post in the dew and darkness or storm and rain;
for never for an instant, day or night, are the sentry posts around
cadet camp vacated, by authority at least, from the hour of the corps'
marching in late in June until the fall of the snowy tents the 28th of
August. It was a "big thing," therefore, to win one of the colors at
guard-mounting.

Twenty-one cadet privates marched on every day, eighteen to man the
ordinary posts and three the color-line, these three being selected by
the adjutant from those whose rifle, equipment, uniform, etc., were in
the handsomest condition. Keen was the rivalry, and simply immaculate
at times the appearance of the contestants. The adjutant would not
infrequently force a dainty white handkerchief into all manner of
crevices about the rifle, or corners of the cartridge-box, wherever
dust or rust might collect, and a speck would ruin a fellow's chances.

On this particular morning, however, Mr. Glenn, the adjutant, was not
thoroughly satisfied with his color-men. He found some fault with two
of those whose rifles were tossed up, and there were only four all
told. And so it happened he had made the circuit of the front rank
without finding a satisfactory third man, nor had he better success on
the right of the rear rank. Coming to Graham, and looking him keenly
over from the tip of his pompon down to the toe of his shoes, the
adjutant's soldierly face lighted up with interest.

"What is your name, sir?" he asked.

"Graham."

"Toss up your rifle."

Geordie obeyed, conscious that his knees and lips were trembling a
little. Glenn took the beautifully-polished weapon, the interest on his
face deepening.

"Did you clean this gun yourself, sir?"

"Yes, sir."

"If this were not your first tour of guard duty, Mr. Graham, and you
had not to learn sentry duty, I would put you on colors." And all the
rear rank and file closers and most of the front rank heard him say it.

Now while a plebe must be berated for every blunder he makes, and is
perpetually being ordered to do better next time, the idea of his
doing so well the first time as to excel the performance of even the
"lowest-down yearling" is still more unforgivable in old cadet eyes.
It was not until dinner-time, however, that Mr. Glenn's commendation
of Corporal Pops began to be noised abroad. The adjutant, in his
dissatisfaction with the yearling candidates for colors, had virtually
instituted comparison between them and a plebe marching on for the very
first time, and comparisons of that nature were indeed odious. And so
it resulted that through no soldierly fault, but rather from too much
soldierly appreciation of his duties, Geordie Graham had fallen under
the ban of yearling censure, and was marked for vengeance.

This is not a pleasant thing for an old cadet—a very old cadet—to
write. There were plenty of Third Class men who, had they heard the
adjutant's remarks as made, and the conversation between Mr. Woods
and Graham as it occurred, would have taken no exceptions; but such
affairs are invariably colored in the telling, and gain in exaggeration
with every repetition. There was no one to tell Geordie's side of the
story. There were few yearlings who cared to question the adjutant
as to the exact nature of his remarks. Without any formal action at
all, but as the result of their own experience the year before and the
loose discussion held in group after group, by a sort of common consent
it was settled that that plebe must be "taken down." Not only must he
be called upon to apologize to Mr. Woods on marching off guard on the
morrow, or else give full satisfaction, cadet fashion, in fair fight
with nature's own weapons, but he must be taught at once that he had
too big an idea of his importance as a sentry. That might be all very
well a year hence, but not now.

At the risk of court-martial and dismissal, if discovered, two members
of the Third Class who had just scraped through the June examination,
and by reason of profusion of demerit and paucity of brains were
reasonably certain of being discharged the service by January next,
"shook hands on it" with one or two cadets more daring—because they
had more to lose—that they would dump Mr. Graham in Fort Clinton ditch
that very night; and as Fort Clinton ditch lay right along the post of
Number Three for a distance of some sixty yards, that would probably be
no difficult thing to do. "Only it's got to be a surprise. That young
Indian fighter will use either butt or bayonet, or both," was the
caution administered by an older head.

"Keep your eye peeled, Graham," whispered Connell to him just after
supper. "Some of those yearlings are going to try and get square with
you to-night."

Pops nodded, but said nothing. He had noticed that during supper
neither Mr. Woods nor any of the Third Class men at the table looked at
or exchanged a word with him. Frazier, all excitement, had overheard
Cadet Jennings, one of the famous boxers of the corps, inquire which
was "that plebe Graham," and had seen him speak in a low tone to
Geordie.

"I have a message for you from Mr. Woods, Mr. Graham," was all that
Jennings had said, "and will see you after you march off guard."

Pops well knew what that meant. From many a graduate, and especially
from Mr. McCrea, he had heard full account of the West Point method of
settling such matters. It differed very little from that described by
that manliest of Christians, Mr. Thomas Hughes, in his incomparable
boy-story, _Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby_, and Pops had never a
doubt as to what his course would have to be. It was one point he could
not and would not discuss with his mother, and one which his father
never mentioned. Pops had said just what he meant to Mr. Woods, and he
meant to stand by what he had said.

But meantime other yearlings proposed to make it lively for him on post
that night, did they? Well, Geordie clinched his teeth, and set his
square, sunburned jaws, and gripped his rifle firmly as the relief went
tramping away down the long vista under the trees. The full moon was
high in the heavens, and camp was wellnigh as light as day. A nice time
they would have stealing upon him unawares, said he to himself; but his
heart kept thumping hard. It was very late—long after one. Only at the
guard-tents was there a lamp or candle burning. It was very still. Only
the long, regular breathing of some sleepers close at hand in the tents
of Company A, the distant rumble of freight trains winding through
the Highlands, or the soft churning of the waters by some powerful
tow-boat, south bound with its fleet of barges, broke upon the night.

Mr. Allen, officer in charge, had visited the guard just before their
relief was on, and, going back to his tent, had extinguished his lamp,
and presumably turned in. It was very warm, and many of the corps
had raised their tent walls; so, too, had Lieutenant Webster, the
army officer commanding Company A, and Pops could see the lieutenant
himself lying on his camp-cot sleeping the sleep of the just. His
post—Number Three—extended from the north end of the color-line, on
which Numbers Two and Six were now pacing, closed in around camp for
the night, down along the north side, skirting the long row of tents
of Company A; then, with the black, deep ditch of Fort Clinton on
the left hand, the gravelled pathway ran straight eastward under the
great spreading trees, past the wall tent of the cadet first captain;
beyond that the double tent of the adjutant; then near at hand was the
water-tank; and farther east, close to the path, the three tents of the
bootblacks and varnishers.

The four big double tents occupied by the four army officers commanding
cadet companies were aligned opposite their company streets, and some
twenty yards away from them. The big "marquee" of the commandant stood
still farther back, close to the shaded post of Number Four—and all so
white and still and ghostly. The corporal of the relief came round in
ten minutes to test the sentries' knowledge of the night orders. Pops
challenged sharply: "Who comes there?" and went through his military
catechism with no serious error. Half an hour later the clink of
sword was heard, and the cadet officer of the guard made the rounds,
and still there came no sign of trouble. Twice had the call of the
half-hour passed around camp. "Half-past two o'clock, and a-l-l's
well," went echoing away among the moonlit mountains, and still no
sight or sound of coming foe.

[Illustration: "'WHO COMES THERE?'"]

"They won't dare, it's so bright a night," said Pops to himself. "Only
an Apache could creep up on me here. They have to come from the side of
camp if they come at all. They can't get out across any sentry post."

Pacing slowly eastward, his rifle on his shoulder, turning vigilantly
behind him every moment or two, he had reached the tank where the
overhanging shade was heaviest and the darkness thick. Opposite the
shoeblack's tent he turned about and started westward again, where
all at the upper end of his post lay bright and clear. He could see
the white trousers and belts of Number Two glinting in the moonlight
as he sauntered along the northern end of his post. Then of a sudden
everything was dark, his rifle pitched forward into space; something
hot, soft, stifling enveloped his head and arms, and wound round and
round about him—all in the twinkling of an eye. Cry out he could not.
Brawny arms embraced him in a bear-hug. Sightless, he was rushed
forward, tripped up, and the next instant half slid, half rolled, into
the dewy, grassy depths of Clinton ditch. Unhurt, yet raging, when at
last, unrolling himself from the folds of a drum-boy's blanket, and
shouting for the corporal of the guard, he clambered back to his post.
Then not a trace could be seen of his assailants, not a sign of his
beautiful gun.




CHAPTER VII


There was excitement in camp next morning. Beyond rapid-running
foot-falls and certain sounds of smothered laughter among the tents,
nothing had been heard by any sentry, plebe or yearling, of the
assailants of Number Three, yet they must have been three or four
in number. Geordie was sure of that; sure also that they must have
concealed themselves in the shoeblack's tent or behind the trees at
the east end of his post. Once clear of his muffling, his loud yell
for the corporal of the guard had brought that young soldier down from
the guard-tents full tilt. (It transpired long afterwards that he was
expecting the summons.) It also brought Lieutenant Webster out of bed
and into his trousers in one jump. "Deviling sentries" was something
that had not been dared the previous summer, and was hardly expected
now. The officer of the guard, too, thought it expedient to hurry to
the scene, and those two cadet officials were upbraiding Mr. Graham for
the loss of his equipment and equilibrium when Mr. Webster interposed.

Cadet Fulton, of the Third Class, was on the neighboring post, Number
Four, and declared that he had seen neither cadets nor anybody else
approaching Mr. Graham's post, nor had a sound of the scuffle reached
him. He must have been at the south end of his post at the time
(as indeed he was, as it also turned out long after), otherwise he
could have seen the marauders had he so desired. Mr. Webster got his
bull's-eye lantern and made an immediate inspection of camp, finding
every old cadet in his appropriate place, and unusually sound asleep.
Meantime it was discovered that Mr. Graham's shoulder-belt had been
sliced in two, and that his cartridge-box and bayonet-scabbard were
also gone. The gun and equipments, therefore, on which he had bestowed
so much care and labor, and the adjutant such commendation, were
partially the objects of assault. The officer of the guard sent for
a lantern, and bade Geordie search along the ditch for them. So down
again, ankle deep in the long dew-sodden grass, did our young plainsman
go, painfully searching, but to no effect. Lieutenant Allen, officer
in charge, who had in the meantime dressed and girt himself with
sword-belt, came presently to the scene and ordered him up again.

"One might as well search for a needle in a hay-stack, as you probably
knew when you sent him there, Mr. Bland," said he, not over-placidly.
He was angry to think of such daring defiance of law and order
occurring almost under his very nose. "Go to the first sergeant of
Company B and tell him to credit Mr. Graham with a full tour of guard
duty, and order the supernumerary to report at once at the guard-house.
Mr. Jay"—this to the corporal of the guard—"you remain here in charge
of this post until relieved. Now go to your tent, Mr. Graham, and get
to bed. You've done very well, sir. This matter will be investigated in
the morning."

But Pops was mad, as he afterwards expressed it, "clean through." "I'll
go if you order me to, sir, but I'd rather borrow a gun and serve my
tour out, and let them try it again." And Mr. Allen, after a moment's
reflection, said: "Very well; do so if you choose."

Whereupon Geordie went to his tent, finding Benny awake and eager for
particulars. Taking Foster's gun and "trimmings," as they used to call
cadet equipments in the old days, he hurried back. Mr. Allen was still
there.

"Did you recognize no one—did you hear no voice—see nothing by which
you could identify any one?" he asked.

"No, sir; it was all done quick as a flash. I didn't hear a thing."

"Have you had any difficulty with anybody? Had you any inkling that
this was to happen?"

Graham hesitated. He knew the cadet rule: "The truth and nothing but
the truth." Indeed, he had never known any other. He knew also that
were he to mention Mr. Woods's name in this connection, it meant
court-martial, in all probability, for Woods. What he did not know was
that that young gentleman was perfectly well aware of the fact, and for
two reasons had had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack: one was
that in the event of investigation he would be the first suspected;
the other that, having taken exceptions to Mr. Graham's retort to
the extent of demanding "satisfaction," he was now debarred by cadet
etiquette from molesting him—except in one way.

"I'm waiting for your answer, Mr. Graham," said the lieutenant.

"Well, sir, I suppose every new cadet has difficulty with the old ones.
This was nothing that I care to speak about."

"With whom had you any trouble, sir? Who threatened you in any way?"

Geordie hesitated, then respectfully but firmly said:

"I decline to say."

"You may have to say, Mr. Graham, should a court of inquiry be
ordered."

But Pops knew enough of army life to understand that courts of
inquiry were rare and extraordinary means of investigation. He stood
respectfully before his inquisitor, but stood in silence, as, indeed,
Mr. Allen rather expected he would do.

"Very well. You can post Mr. Graham again," said he, finally; "and you
will be held responsible, Mr. Officer of the Guard, in the event of
further annoyance to him to-night."

But there was none. At half-past three the relief came around, and
Geordie turned over his post to Connell. There was some chuckling and
laughter and covert glances on the part of old cadets when they went
to breakfast, and Benny Frazier was full of eager inquiry as to what
had become of his rifle and equipments. But Geordie was still very sore
over his discomfiture, and would say nothing at all. No sooner had the
detail broken ranks, after being marched into Company B's street on the
dismissal of the old guard, than the drum-boy orderly appeared and told
Geordie the commandant wished to see him.

The Colonel was seated in his big tent, and the new officer of the day,
Cadet Captain Vincent, of C Company, was standing attention before him.

"There must be no repetition of last night's performance on your
guard, sir," Pops heard him say, as he stood on the gravel path outside
awaiting his turn, and wondering why Mr. Bend, the acting first
sergeant of his company, should be there too. Any one who happened to
be on the lookout at this moment could not fail to see that a number of
cadets had gathered at the east end of each company street, and, though
busied apparently in animated chat with one another, they were keeping
at the same time a close watch on the commandant's tent. Mr. Vincent
saluted, faced about, and gravely marched away, holding his plumed head
very high, and looking straight before him. It wouldn't do to grin
until he had passed the line of tactical tents (as the four domiciles
of the company commandants were sometimes called). Yet he felt like
grinning. No one man could suppress the impulse of mischief rampant in
the yearling class, and Vincent knew it. And then Pops was summoned.
The colonel looked him keenly over.

"You are sure you recognized none of your assailants last night?"

"Perfectly sure, sir. I had no opportunity."

"Have you heard anything as yet of your rifle and equipments?"

"No, sir; nothing at all."

"Mr. Bend," said the colonel, "issue Mr. Graham a brand-new rifle—one
that has never been used; also new equipments. His were taken because
they were the best cleaned in the class. We'll save him as much trouble
as possible in the future—until those are found."

And so, instead of the "veteran outfit" that would doubtless have been
issued to replace those lost, Geordie found himself in possession of a
handsome new cadet rifle, bayonet, cartridge-box, and bayonet-scabbard.
Mr. Bend, as instructed, carefully registered the arsenal number on his
note-book. The first and second classes, breaking ranks after their
morning duties, came thronging back to their company street to get
ready for dinner. The yearlings promptly clustered around Bend.

"The colonel tried to get him to tell," said he, in answer to eager
questions, "but he wouldn't. You're safe enough, Woods, if you don't
push matters any further."

"But I've got to," said Woods, in a low tone. "Jennings has seen him
already, and Ross says it's got to be one thing or the other."

Mr. Ross, the authority thus quoted, was the cadet first lieutenant of
Company B. There are generally certain magnates of the senior class to
whom mooted questions are referred, just as in foreign services the
differences among officers are examined by the regimental court of
honor, and it may be said of Mr. Ross right here that he never refused
his services as referee, and rarely prescribed any course but battle.
There were still some fifteen minutes before the dinner drums would
beat; and when Mr. Jennings came over from Company A and took Woods
aside, the eyes of the entire street were on them. A prospective fight
is a matter of absorbing interest from highest to lowest.

"One moment, Jennings," said Bend, joining the two; "before you go
any further in this matter, I want you to know that when many a plebe
might have been excused for giving the whole thing dead away to the
commandant this morning, Mr. Graham stood up like a man and wouldn't
tell."

"Of course he wouldn't!" answered Jennings, shortly. "Mr. Graham's a
gentleman. All the more reason why Woods can't swallow his language."

"Well, see here; I think Woods brought the whole thing on himself,"
said Bend, sturdily. "This is no personal row, and that young fellow
has been taught all his life that a sentinel is entitled to respect, in
the first place, and is expected to do his whole duty, in the second.
I'm not 'going back on a class-mate,' as you seem to think, but I want
you, and I want Woods here, to put yourselves in that plebe's place a
moment, and say whether you'd have answered differently."

"We can't back out now," answered Woods, gruffly. "The whole corps
knows just what he said, and it will be totally misjudged if we don't
demand apology. He's got to apologize," he went on, hotly, "or else
fight; and it's not your place to be interfering, Bend, and you know
it."

"I wouldn't interfere if it were a simple matter of a personal row
between the two; but this is a matter in which—and I say it plainly,
Jennings—this young fellow is being set upon simply because he's been
raised as a soldier, and knows more what's expected of a soldier than
any man in his class, and—by Jupiter! since you will have it—than a
good many of ours, you and Woods in particular." And now the cadet
corporal's eyes were flashing. "What's more, Jennings, I believe
Woods's better judgment would prompt him to see this thing as I do, but
that you're forcing a fight."

By this time ears as well as eyes of half of B Company—First Class,
yearlings, and plebes—were intent. Bend, indignant and full of vim, had
raised his voice so that his words were plainly heard by a dozen at
least. Fearful of a fracas on the spot, Cadet Lieutenant Ross sprang
forward.

"Not another word, Bend! Be quiet, Jennings! You two can settle this
later. I'm witness to what has been said; so are a dozen more. Go about
your other affair, Jennings."

Jennings was boiling over with wrath. In cadet circles almost as much
opprobrium is attached to the bully who is over-anxious to fight as
to the shirk who won't fight at all—not quite so much, perhaps—but
Jennings turned away.

"You'll hear from me later on this score, Bend," he growled. "I'm at
Woods's service for the moment, and I decline any officious meddling on
your part." With that he strode up the company street, his face hot and
frowning.

Geordie was pinning a collar on his plebe jacket at the moment, and had
resumed the gray dress of his class-mates in order to march with them
to dinner. So had Connell. Foster and Frazier, all excitement, had been
watching the scene down in front of the first sergeant's tent.

"Here comes Mr. Jennings, Graham," said Benny, excitedly, and the
next instant the burly figure of the A Company corporal—Woods's
friend—appeared at the tent door. It wasn't the first time he had been
accused of a bullying tone in conveying such a message. A First Class
man, splashing his close-cropped head and sun-browned face in front of
the next tent, emerged from behind his towel, and, still dripping, came
forward as Jennings began to speak.

[Illustration: "WOODS'S FRIEND APPEARED AT THE TENT DOOR"]

"Mr. Graham, my friend Mr. Woods considers himself insulted by your
language at the dinner-table yesterday, and he demands an apology."

Geordie's face was a little white, but the blue eyes didn't flinch a
particle.

"I've none to make," was the brief answer.

"Then I suppose you will refer me to some friend at once. You know the
consequences, I presume," said Jennings, magnificently.

"Just as soon as I can find some one," answered Geordie. "I'll look
around after dinner."

"Well, you want to step out about it," was the curt reply. "There's
been too much shilly-shally about this matter already."

"That's no fault of mine!" answered Pops, firing up at the instant.
"Connell, you'll stand by me, won't you? Mr. Jennings, you can have all
the satisfaction you want; and, what's more, just you say that if I can
find out who stole my gun last night there'll be no time fooled away
asking for any apologies."

"Bully!" gasped Benny, with eager delight; and Foster smote his thigh
with ecstasy.

"All right, my young fighting-cock!" sneered Jennings. "We'll
accommodate you—and begin to-night during supper. See that you and Mr.
Connell here are ready."

"Oh, one moment, Mr. Jennings," interposed the First Class neighbor.
"Mr. Graham is possibly ignorant of the fact that as a challenged
party it's his right and not yours to name the time. Fair play, if you
please, now; fair play."

"Oh, he'll get fair play enough," said Jennings, impatiently.

But here the clamor of fife and drum, thundering away at "The Roast
Beef of Old England," put an end to the preliminaries. All through
dinner nothing was talked of at the table of Company B but the coming
mill between Woods and Graham, the first of the inevitable series of
fisticuffs between yearling and plebe. Of course, too, by this time
Graham's virtual challenge to his assailants to come out and own
up was being passed from lip to lip. Of course, it was always the
understood thing that if a plebe objected to his treatment and demanded
satisfaction, the offender must fight. Only, by the unwritten code of
the corps, there were certain things which it was held a plebe should
take as a matter of course, and not look upon in the light of personal
affront; and being hazed on post was one of them. Mr. Otis, their
next-door neighbor, took the trouble to explain this to Pops later in
the afternoon, and Geordie listened respectfully, but without being
moved. He had been taught all his life just the reverse, he said. A
sentry was a sentry all the world over, and whether Life-guardsman in
London, soldier in the Sioux country, or plebe at the Point, it didn't
make a particle of difference to him. "I may be wrong, Mr. Otis, but
it's all the fault of my bringing up."

"Confound the pig-headed young sawney!" said Otis, afterwards. "He's as
obstinate as a mule, and, what makes it worse, he's perfectly right;
only the yearlings can't see it, and he'll have no end of fight and
trouble, especially if he licks Woods to-night."

Now here was a question. Woods had all the advantage of the year's
splendid gymnastic training, under as fine a master as the nation could
provide. Every muscle and sinew was evenly and carefully developed. He
was lithe, quick, active, skilled with foil, bayonet, and broadsword,
and fairly well taught with the gloves. He had borne himself well
in the two or three "scrimmages" of his plebe year, and the Third
Class were wellnigh unanimous in their prediction that he'd "make a
chopping-block of that plebe." Geordie was bulkier than his foeman,
a splendid specimen of lusty health, strength, and endurance; but he
lacked as yet the special training and systematic development of the
yearling.

"Take 'em a year from now," said Mr. Ross, "and there's no question
but that Woods'll be outclassed; but to-day it makes one think of
Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu."

And so the afternoon wore away, and the excitement increased. Jennings
was in his glory.

"It'll be a beauty," was the way he expressed himself. "That plebe's a
plucky one. I may have to give him a lesson myself yet." And he bared
his magnificent arm, and complacently regarded the bulging biceps.

"If it's two years from now when he tries it on," remarked Mr. Otis,
when Jennings's remarks were repeated to him, "may I be there to see!
It's my belief Mr. Jennings will get a lesson he richly deserves."

Despite every effort to keep the details secret, nine-tenths of the
corps knew that the fight was to come off in Fort Clinton during
supper-time, and such was the eagerness to see the affair that, despite
the urgings of Mr. Ross, the referee, and Mr. Jennings, no less than
thirty or forty old cadets fell out after parade, as they were then
allowed to do in case they did not care to go to the mess-hall. It
was a hot night, too, and so short was the time between evening-gun
fire and the opening waltz that many of the corps were in the habit
of "cutting supper." The thinned ranks of the battalion, therefore,
conveyed no meaning to the officer in charge. Jauntily the gray and
white column went striding away across the Plain, drums and fifes
playing merrily. Pops never hears the jolly notes of "Kingdom Coming"
now without feeling again the throbbing of his heart as he quickly
doffed his gray trousers and donned a pair of white, so as to be in
uniform with the older cadets, Connell doing the same. Benny and
Foster, though mad with excitement, had been ordered to go to supper.
The absence of so many from one table would have aroused suspicion.
One or two plebes in C and D Companies determined to be on hand to see
Graham through, though rare indeed are there cases of unfair play. They
had borrowed old dress-coats and white trousers. Mr. Ross had duly seen
to it that at a certain moment the sentries on Three and Four should be
at the distant end of their respective posts and facing away from Fort
Clinton, and as the battalion disappeared down the leafy avenue by the
"Old Academic," Mr. Otis came to Graham's tent.

"Now's your time, lad, and I've only one piece of advice—clinch and
throw him as quick as you can."

Two minutes later, all on a sudden, some thirty or forty nimble young
fellows appeared at the northeast corner of the camp, darted across
the north end of Number Four's post while that sentry was absorbed
fifty yards away in a 'bus-load of ladies going back to Cranston's
after parade, and in less time than it takes to write it they were
over the grass-grown ramparts of the old fort, and grouped about
the shaded nook near the Kosciusko monument, the scene of hundreds
of storied battles. Only two styles of combat were recognized at the
Point in Geordie's day—only honest fighting could be tolerated at any
time, but it was the right of the challenged cadet to say whether it
should be fought to a finish from the word, without time or rounds
of any kind, taking no account of falls or throws—the old-fashioned
"rough-and-tumble," in fact—or else by the later method of the Marquis
of Queensbury rules. The slow and cumbrous system of the old London
prize-ring had long since been abandoned.

Acting on Mr. Otis's advice, Connell had decided on the first-named, as
giving less chance for Woods's science and more for Geordie's strength.
And now, while in silence the eager spectators ranged themselves about
the spot, the two young fellows threw aside coats and caps, and with
bared chests and arms stepped forward into the open space among the
trees, where stood Mr. Ross awaiting them. Each was attended by his
second. Jennings eyed Geordie, and in a gruff, semi-professional style,
ordered: "Show your foot there! No spikes allowed." Graham flushed, but
held up, one after the other, the soles of his shoes to show that they
were smooth.

"It seems to me that your man has no business wearing tennis-shoes,"
said Connell. "Rubber soles give him an advantage on this turf. I
protest!"

Ross shook his head, but suddenly another voice was heard, and a
new figure joined the group. A light shot into Graham's face. He
recognized Mr. Glenn, the cadet adjutant who had so commended him at
guard-mounting.

"Of course it's unfair, Ross. What's more, the plebe's shoes are new
and stiff, and the soles are slippery. This thing can't go on until
that's settled."

Mr. Ross frowned. Time was precious, but down in his heart he knew the
adjutant was right. More than that, he felt somehow that Mr. Glenn
was there in the interests of fairer play than he himself considered
necessary, but there was no running counter to Glenn's dictum. A
yearling was despatched for Woods's uniform shoes, and it was some
minutes before he got back. Then the exchange was quickly made, and a
second time the foemen faced each other, the yearling's skin as white
and firm as satin-wood, Geordie's face and neck brown as autumn acorns,
his broad chest and shoulders pink and hard.

"Are you ready?" asked Ross. "Fall back, Mr. Jennings."

Woods instantly dropped into an easy, natural pose, his guard well
advanced, his right hand low and close to the body.

"Watch that right, Graham," muttered Connell, as he backed away; and
Geordie took a similar stand—clumsier, perhaps, but well meant.

And then the simple word, "Go!"

It would have baffled an expert reporter to describe what followed.
Something like a white flash shot from Woods's shoulder to start with,
and then for just twenty seconds there was a confused intermingling of
white and brown. All over that springy sward, up and down, over and
across, bounding, dancing, darting, dodging, Woods active and wary,
Graham charging and forcing the fight, despite heavy blows planted
thick and fast.

"Isn't he a young mountain-lion?" muttered Glenn, below his breath.

"He'll be worse than a grizzly if he gets Woods in a hug," was the
reply. "Look! he's grappled!"

Reckless of punishment as was ever stalwart Roderick, Geordie had
backed his lighter foe up the slope, then

    "Locked his arms the foeman round."

A moment of straining and heaving, then down, down they came upon the
turf, the plainsman atop. And then went up a sudden shout of warning.
The next thing Graham knew he was jerked to his feet.

"Run for your life, plebe!" was the cry, as he dimly saw the crowd
scattering in every direction, and, led by Connell, rushed he knew not
whither.




CHAPTER VIII


"Who whipped? How did it end?" asked a swarm of old cadets of Mr. Ross,
on breaking ranks after supper.

"It didn't end," was the gloomy answer. "Allen jumped the fight and
nabbed the plebe. He recognized me, too, I reckon, though the rest of
us got away."

And so while the Fourth Class men made a rush to find their champion,
the elders clustered about the referee for particulars. Geordie was
found at his tent, looking very solemn, but quite cool and collected.
He had changed back to plebe dress again, and had bathed the bumps and
bruises on his brown face, Connell busily aiding him. His hand was
swollen and sore from a sprain, but otherwise he was sound as ever.

"We had Woods licked," said Connell, emphatically. "Graham had him down
when the rush came. Everybody seemed to know which way to go except
ourselves. We ran slap into Lieutenant Allen, and he had to stop and
take my name instead of gobbling the others. Yes; we've got to go to
the guard-tent, they say. There's no helping that."

This was hard news indeed. Fights are so seldom interrupted, and the
system is looked upon so eminently as a matter of course, that nothing
but the most outrageous luck could have led to this catastrophe; and
then to think of Graham's being the victim—Graham and his second—while
the real aggressors had escaped scot-free!

"Not scot-free, either," said one lucky plebe, who had seen the battle
and yet escaped capture—"not scot-free, by a long chalk. Mr. Woods got
one Scotch lick he won't forget in a week." Whereat some of the group
took heart and laughed; and then who should appear but the adjutant,
Mr. Glenn.

"How is it, plebe—any damages?"

Geordie looked up through a fast-closing eye as he buttoned his jacket.
"Hit pretty often, I guess, but I didn't notice it much at the time.
What troubles me is that it's got Mr. Connell into the guard-house."

"Well, that's just what I've come to see you about," said Glenn. "Don't
worry a particle. No one's more sorry you were caught than Mr. Allen
himself, I'll bet. You've got to go to the guard-tent, but that's only
for a few days. There's no dodging regulations, of course; but there
you'll be let alone, and there'll be nobody to bother you. You've won
the sympathy of the whole corps, and you did well, plebe." And here the
adjutant put his hand on Geordie's shoulder. "That throw was tip-top!"

And then the assembled plebes would have been only too glad to
give three cheers for the adjutant; but so big a gathering of the
"animals" attracted the instant attention of their natural enemies,
the yearlings, who swooped down to disperse the crowd, and the patrol
came from the guard-tent, and with much show of severity the corporal
directed Pops and Connell to fetch their blankets and come along.

And so, solemnly, the two culprits were marched away amid the subdued
remarks of sympathy on every hand—even the group of elders about
Ross—and in much better frame of mind than that magnate, for the
orderly came at the moment to summon Mr. Glenn to the commandant's
tent. That meant the colonel wanted his adjutant; and that probably
meant that those cadets whom Allen had seen and recognized as
participants in the forbidden fight were now to be placed in arrest.

Captures on the spot he had made but two—Geordie, breathless,
bewildered, and half blind, and his second, Connell, who stood by
his friend through thick and thin. All the others had scattered the
instant the warning cry of the scouts was heard; First Class men and
yearlings, veterans of such occasions, darting over the parapet and
across the road and down the rocky, thickly-wooded steep towards the
chain-battery walk, better known as "Flirtation;" while Mr. Allen,
too dignified to run in pursuit, stumbled, as ill-luck would have it,
on the men he least desired to come upon, if, indeed, he desired to
capture any.

But he recognized both Ross and Jennings as they darted away, and
saw them prominent in the ring. This meant jeopardy for two pairs of
chevrons. Ross, slipping back to camp at the first opportunity, eagerly
questioned Pops and Connell, who had been escorted thither by the
officer. Had Mr. Allen asked them to name the others interested? He
had; but, as became cadets, they declined to give their names. Glenn
and Otis, the other two First Class men on the ground, had quietly
retired among the trees in rear of them on hearing the alarm, and then
made their way out of the gate as the Lieutenant took his helpless
prisoners down the wooden stairway at the southeast angle. They had not
been seen.

As for Allen's coming, it was accidental. Strolling with a friend from
the hotel around the road that skirts the edge of the heights, he heard
sounds from across the grassy parapet no graduate could mistake. A
fight, of course! and having heard it, it was his duty to interfere.
The next minute he was through the north gate and bearing down on the
battle, when the outermost yearlings caught sight of his coming and
gave the alarm.

Ross and Jennings did not attend the hop that night. Before they
had had time to array themselves in fresh white trousers and their
best uniform coats, Mr. Glenn, the adjutant, had returned from the
commandant's tent and gone straight to his own. Presently he emerged,
girt with sash and sword-belt, and that meant business. No use for any
one to run and hide; that merely deferred matters.

"Mr. Ross, you are hereby placed in close arrest, and confined to
your tent. Charge—promoting a fight. By order of Lieutenant-Colonel
Hazzard," was the pithy address he delivered to his class-mate, with
precisely the same amount of emotion which he might have displayed had
he informed him he was detailed for guard duty on the morrow. And yet
seconders or promoters of cadet fights were by regulations regarded as
challengers, and, as such, subject to court-martial and dismissal. Then
he went in search of Jennings, and though that worthy did for a moment
contemplate the possibility of hiding somewhere, he was too slow about
it. Those who heard Mr. Glenn this time declare he threw a little
more emphasis into the curt order.

[Illustration: "'MR. ROSS, YOU ARE HEREBY PLACED IN CLOSE ARREST'"]

And so, when tattoo sounded that night, Cadet Lieutenant Ross and Cadet
Corporal Jennings were grumbling at their fate in close arrest at their
respective tents, for, being chevron-wearers, they were exempt from
confinement with the common herd at the guard-tents, where by this time
were Pops and Connell, by long odds the two most popular and important
members of the plebe class.

And there for one mortal week the boys remained, having a very
comfortable time of it, barring the nuisance of being turned out with
the guard every time it was inspected at night. They were exempt from
all the annoyance of their comrades down in the body of camp. They
attended all drills, and lost neither instruction nor exercise. They
had the unspeakable delight of being allowed, every warm evening, to
raise their tent walls after taps, and sit and watch class-mate after
class-mate taking his first lessons in sentry duty out on the posts of
Two and Six.

Especially Benny, when at last it came his turn; and that
self-sufficient young soldier, in just about one hour's active
deviling, had perhaps the liveliest experience of a lifetime.
The officers in charge—for some reason that has never yet been
explained—seemed particularly deaf that night. The commandant and
others were not disturbed by the racket, and Benny's instruction,
coaching, and testing—above all, the testing—were left entirely to the
cadet officers and non-commissioned officers of the guard, and, at odd
times, to certain volunteers from the tents of Companies C and D, whose
costumes were so confusing that their own comrades couldn't know them,
much less could Benny.

And so the crack captain of the Beanton Battalion was kept hurrying
from one end to the other of his post, challenging an array of mock
generals and colonels, armed parties, patrols, grand rounds, reliefs,
friends with the countersign or enemies without it, that would have
been simply incredible anywhere but on a plebe's post at West Point.
In less than twenty minutes poor confident Benny, who had guard duty
at his tongue's end and wasn't going to be fooled with, had made every
blunder a sentry could possibly make, had lost every item of arms and
equipments, nerve and temper, and had been bawling for the corporal
of the guard, Post Number Six, in accordance with the methods of the
Beanton camp, and in defiance of the laws and customs of the regular
service, all to the mischievous delight of the entire corps, until
finally he could bawl no longer. He had sneered at Pops for being
ducked in the ditch and overwhelmed in the darkness, yet he, occupying
an open post, had been so utterly bewildered, so completely overcome,
that the poor fellow would have been thankful for a ditch wherein to
hide his diminished head.

They had been sent for, both Pops and Connell, and questioned at the
colonel's tent as to the other participants in the interrupted fight,
but respectfully declined to say anything on that score; and finally,
just as it was noised about camp that the plebes were to be put in
the battalion, and they were fearing their punishment might keep them
back, they heard with beating hearts the order of the superintendent
read in Glenn's clear and ringing tones at dress parade. Even to them,
in the ranks of the guard, with a crowd of hundreds of gayly-dressed
spectators interposing between them and the silent battalion, every
word seemed distinct.

For "inciting, promoting, or otherwise participating in a fight, Cadet
Lieutenant Ross and Cadet Corporal Jennings were hereby reduced to the
ranks and confined to the body of camp east of the color-line until
the 15th of August." New Cadets Connell and Graham, for taking part
in the same, were ordered confined to camp for the same period. All
were released from arrest and restored to duty; and Pops and Connell,
shouldering their bedding, went back to their tent in Company B, and
reporting to Cadet Lieutenant Merrick, in charge of the plebes, were
welcomed with acclamations by their class-mates.

That night, for the last time, the new-comers marched to the mess-hall
as a body. That night at tattoo, for the first time, they answered to
their names with their companies. Geordie and Connell, rejoicing in
having got off so easily (for their punishment practically amounted to
nothing but forfeiture of the privilege of roaming over public lands
on a Saturday afternoon or the mornings they marched off guard), and
comforted by friendly words let drop by occasional First Class men, set
themselves busily to work to put their rifles and equipments in order
again. During his week in the guard-tent Pops had caused his new box
and scabbard to be put in his locker, well covered by clothing. The
weather had been hot and dry, so that the handsome new rifle had not
suffered materially.

Two days later both Graham and Connell were on the detail again; the
First Class privates had been relieved from guard duty as such, and
their names placed on a roster to serve as junior officers of the
guard. The twenty-one sentries were therefore taken from the Third and
Fourth classes, and on this particular occasion there marched on eight
yearlings and thirteen plebes. As before, Geordie had done his best to
have his uniform and equipments perfect. As before, Mr. Glenn seemed
dissatisfied with the condition in which he found two of the aspirants
for colors among the Third Class men. Going back to the front rank, he
indicated two young gentlemen with a gesture of his white-gloved hand,
saying, briefly, "First colors, Murray; second colors, Wren," passed
deliberately by four other yearlings, Cadet Private Jennings among
them, stopped squarely in front of Pops in the centre of the rear rank,
and said, "Third colors, Mr. Graham."

And our frontier boy felt the blood surging and tingling up to the tips
of his ears. How his heart danced in response to the sweet melodies of
Strauss, as in waltz-time the band beat off down the line. How proud
and happy he was in response to the ringing order: "Pass in review!
Forward, guide right!" The natty little column marched blithely away,
wheeling at the angles, passing the statuesque officer of the day with
perfect alignment and easy swinging step. Prompt and silent he stepped
from the ranks at the order, "Colors, fall out!" knowing that every
eye would be on him as he passed in front of the guard. Then came the
order, "Rest!" and then, instantly, in Jennings's angry voice, "By
thunder! that's the first time I ever heard of colors being given to
a plebe when there were old cadets in line." And every yearling in the
detail probably sympathized with him.

But it was not the adjutant with whom Mr. Jennings purposed squaring
accounts for the alleged indignity, but the plebe whose sole offence
was that he had obeyed orders too well.

"Keep clear of that brute Jennings all you can to-day," whispered
Connell to his tent-mate. "He means mischief."

And Geordie nodded. Instinctively he felt that that burly yearling was
his determined enemy, and that more trouble was coming. From Woods he
had had not a word beyond the intimation sent by Mr. Curtis, a quiet,
gentlemanly fellow, that as soon as the excitement had blown over
he should expect Mr. Graham to meet him again and finish the fight.
Referring this to their First Class mentor, Mr. Otis, they were told
that it was customary, though not necessary. So Pops simply replied,
"All right."

[Illustration: TURNING OUT OF THE GUARD]

But Mr. Jennings behaved with rare diplomacy. All day long he held
aloof from Graham, never so much as looking at him after the first
angry outbreak. That evening, when relieved from guard and told he
might return to his tent, Geordie really didn't know what to do with
himself. He would much rather have been subject to sentry duty all
night. However, he carefully placed his prized rifle in the gun-rack;
and that evening a lot of plebes were singing and sparring for the
amusement of their elders over in D Company, so Geordie went thither to
look on and laugh. When the drums came beating tattoo across the Plain
he returned to his tent, which was dark and deserted. Not until after
roll-call did Foster strike a light. Then Graham noticed that four or
five Third Class men were standing and watching him rather closely,
though keeping across the street. He stepped inside, intending to make
down his bed for the night; and then, there stood Foster, candle in
hand, looking blankly at the three muskets.

"Why, Graham," said he, slowly, "what's happened to your gun?"

Turning instantly, Geordie saw by the light of the candle, in place
of the flawless, glistening weapon he had left there an hour earlier,
a rifle coated red with rust and dirt. Amazed, he seized and drew it
forth, mechanically forcing open the breech-lock and glancing in. There
could be no mistake; from butt plate to front sight, barrel, bands,
hammer, lock and guard, breech-block and all, it was one mass of rust.
Dazed and dismayed, he looked for the number, and then all doubt was
gone. It was his own old rifle, the one that had been taken away his
first night on post. His beautiful new gun was gone.

One moment he stood irresolute, then sprang forth into the company
street.

"Mr. Bend," he cried, in wrath and excitement, "look, sir, they've
taken away my new rifle and left this, my old one, in its place!"

"Who has done it?" snapped Bend, flaring up with indignation, as he saw
the abominable plight of the restored weapon. "Have you any idea? Any
suspicion?"

"No, sir, I can't accuse any one. It's too mean a trick."

A dozen yearlings were gathered by this time, saying very little,
however, and some of them exchanging significant glances, but Bend
turned impatiently away, ordering Pops to follow.

"Oh, Leonard, look at this!" he cried, as they reached the captain's
tent, and a long whistle of amazement and indignation was all the First
Class man would at first venture in reply.

"That gun has been lying in damp grass ever since the night you lost
it," said he, finally. "The man who took your new one knew where to
find this, and was one of the party that downed you. Have you still no
suspicion?"

"No, sir," said Geordie, with a gulp. "I suppose they did it out of
revenge for my taking colors this morning."

"Glenn! oh, Glenn!" called Mr. Leonard from his tent door.

"Hello!" came the answer back through the darkness.

"Come here, will you? _lively_—I want you."

The drums and fifes by this time were halted on the color-line, and the
last part of tattoo was sounding. Bend turned away to superintend the
formation of his company, but the captain directed Graham to remain.
Presently the soldierly form of the adjutant appeared.

"Look at that!" said Leonard, handing him Graham's rifle.

"Hello, where did you find it, plebe?"

"In my gun-rack, sir, just now, in place of the new one you saw at
guard-mounting this morning."

"Do you mean that's gone?"

"Yes, sir."

"That'll do, then. Join your company. Leonard," said he, as Geordie
turned away, "the man that did this dirty trick shall be kicked out of
the corps inside of six months, if I have to drop everything else to
find him."




CHAPTER IX


Events crowded thick and fast into plebe life during the next few days.
In the first place both the adjutant and Cadet Captain Leonard came
to Geordie's tent a little after taps the night of the discovery of
the exchange of rifles. Pops and Foster were still awake, chatting in
whispers about the matter. Benny, who had been full of excitement and
interest at first, seemed to be overcome by drowsiness and dropped off
to sleep. The boys were advised by the First Class men to say as little
as possible on the subject. Leonard would report it to the commandant,
as in duty bound, but ask that no official investigation be made. He
had strong suspicions, he said, and if the perpetrators were not put
upon their guard something might be effected. Then, next morning,
when Mr. Jennings marched off guard he surprised his class-mates by
denouncing the whole business as a low-lived trick. Of course the plebe
ought to be "taken down," but not by any such means as that. He came
over to B Company street as his class was dismissed after battery drill
and talked at Bend, who paid no attention to him. He went so far as
to say that he believed no Third Class man had anything to do with the
business; it was the work of plebes who were jealous of the partiality
shown Graham by the adjutant. _There_ was the man who should be given
to understand by the whole class what they thought of him and his
conduct! Other yearlings chimed in with one view or another, but Bend,
working away over some company papers in his tent, held his peace.
Jennings, who had already an unsettled score with Bend, was galled by
this cool, almost contemptuous manner, and the next thing anybody knew
hot words were exchanged—hot at least on the part of Jennings, for Bend
kept control of his tongue and temper—and that evening occurred one of
the most famous fights Fort Clinton ever saw, and Bend, game to the
last, though outmatched from the start, was finally whipped. For three
days B Company was deprived of the services of their plucky senior
corporal, and little Hastings had to act as first sergeant while his
senior stayed in hospital until his many bruises were reduced. Bend
was not the only cadet whose name appeared on the morning sick report,
submitted to the commandant, with "contusions" given as the reason of
his disability, and everybody in authority knew perfectly well that
"contusions" meant another fight; but so long as no one was caught in
the act, no punishment followed. The difference between the cadet duels
and those of the French fencers or German students appears to be that,
though only nature's weapons are allowed, somebody has to be hurt.

But though declared victor, as anybody could have predicted he would
be, Jennings was anything but a happy man. He had lost his chevrons.
He had lost much of the popularity that had attended him since the
plebe camp of the previous year, when his class-mates hailed him as
one of their champions. He saw that now the better men looked upon
him as verging close upon bullyhood, holding that he had forced the
fight between Woods and Graham and then forced another between himself
and Bend, a man whom he clearly outclassed. This in itself was enough
to hurt him seriously, but there were graver matters afoot. Glenn
had never yet dropped the "Mister" in speaking to him, and, by the
unwritten laws of the corps of cadets, that meant "keep your distance."
The invariable custom of the old cadets, First Class officers and all,
was to "Mister" everybody in the Fourth Class from the date of their
entrance until the coming of the following June—nearly twelve long
months—but then to drop the formal title, and welcome the new yearling
to the comradeship of the corps. Then every yearling in good standing
expected to be hailed by his surname or the jovial nickname, and in
return to be accorded the proud privilege of addressing even the first
captain and adjutant as friends and comrades—as "Rand" and "Glenn,"
as the case might be. West Point recognizes no secret societies, no
oath-bound fraternities. There is one general brotherhood, initiation
to which occupies fully ten weeks, probation nearly ten months, but
membership is for life or good behavior. Now Glenn plainly said by
his manner that he neither liked nor trusted Jennings, and Mr. Rand,
the big first captain, who was at first so friendly to him, now began
to hold aloof. It was anything but as a conquering hero he returned
from the battle with Bend. He had expected no such display of cool,
nervy, determined courage against such odds. He was sore without and
within, though he had received, of course, no such heavy punishment as
had sent Bend to the hospital. He sat with his silent second in his
tent, applying wet sponges to his bruises and noting how few were the
congratulations, how indifferent the inquiries as to his own condition.
Later he was lying on his blankets revolving matters in his mind,
wondering what he could do to restore his waning popularity, when he
heard some plebes chatting eagerly in the B Company tent just back of
his own. "Graham's got his gun again all right," was what they were
saying, and before he could arrive at further particulars who should
appear at the tent door but the adjutant and Cadet Captain Leonard.
They bade him lie still, but they had a question or two to ask.

"You were on post on Number Three last evening, Mr. Jennings," said
Glenn, "and for full an hour before tattoo, when Mr. Graham's new rifle
was exchanged for an old rusty one. The new rifle was found in the
weeds near the dump hollow close to your post. Did no one cross your
post?"

"Not a soul that I saw," promptly answered Jennings, "and unless it
was found in the south ditch of Fort Clinton, it must have been hidden
nearer Number Two's day post than mine."

"We have questioned Number Two," said Glenn, briefly. "He denies all
knowledge of it. He says, what's more, that nobody could have got away
without his seeing him. It was Mr. Douglas, of the Fourth Class, as you
know, and this was his third tour."

"Oh, I can't pretend to say no one got across my post. No one can be at
all parts of that long beat at the same time. It was cloudy, too, and
pitch dark. Anybody could have crossed up there at the west end while
I was down by your tent. If the gun was found there, it is more than
likely some one did cross. It would have gone hard with him if I'd
caught him."

"Then you're sure you saw no one—had no conversation with anybody?"

"I saw no one cross. I held conversation with half a dozen—class-mates
and plebes both—when I happened to be down by the tank. There were
Cresswell and Drake, and Curry early in the evening; they were
condoling with me about being 'broke.' Then there were plebes coming
down there frequently; I had more or less chaff with them, and
Major-General Frazier among them. I heard him spouting about his
exploits. Where was the rifle found?" continued Jennings.

"Oh, out near the east end of the old dump hollow, hidden among the
weeds and rubbish," said Leonard. "But never mind that just now. It was
brought to my tent, and you are reported to have said you thought it
was the work of some plebe. Why?"

"Well, lots of 'em are jealous of Mr. Graham for getting colors so
easily for one thing. They think the commandant shows him partiality.
They say it's because Graham's father is an army officer. That's why I
think they might have put up the job among themselves."

"Yes? And how did they know where the old gun was hidden—the one that
was taken from him the night he was dumped into the ditch off Number
Three? You think plebes did that?"

But that was something Jennings could not answer. He stopped short, and
was evidently confused.

There was indeed something queer about the case. Very little the worse
for its night in the weeds, thanks to there having been no dew, for the
night skies were overcast by heavy clouds, the rifle was brought in by
a drum-boy orderly, who said he stumbled upon it accidentally. Glenn
had cross-questioned sharply, but the boy persisted in his story. It
was the same youngster whom Benny had employed to buy him cigarettes at
the Falls. Pops was overjoyed to get his beautiful rifle again, and,
personally, well content to drop any effort to find the perpetrator.
Indeed, it seemed for a time as though nothing was being done. Bend
came back to duty with discolored face, cool and steady as ever, and
Jennings kept away from the B Company street, where he now had few
friends. Geordie began to wonder when the yearlings would decide to
summon him to Fort Clinton to settle the score still hung up between
Woods and himself. It was awkward sitting at table with a man to whom
he couldn't speak.

[Illustration: "THE RIFLE WAS BROUGHT IN BY A DRUM-BOY ORDERLY"]

Meantime every day and hour made him more at home in his duties and in
the new life. Of course it wasn't pleasant to be everywhere hailed
as "Corporal" Graham, and to be compelled, whether in ranks or out,
wherever he moved, to stalk along with his shoulders braced back, his
little fingers on the seams of his trousers and the palms of his hands
turned square to the front, his elbows in consequence being spitted to
his side like the wings of a trussed chicken; but this was the method
resorted to with one and all the new-comers, whether naturally erect
or not, to square the shoulders, flatten the back, and counteract the
ridiculous carriage of so many—at least, of the Eastern city boys.
Anglomania in exaggerated form was epidemic on the Atlantic seaboard
just then, and to insure recognition in polite society it seemed to be
necessary to cultivate a bow-legged, knee-sprung style of walk, with
shoulders hunched forward, chest flat, elbows bent at right angles, and
carried straight out from the side; these, with a vacuous expression
of countenance being considered "good form"; and strenuous measures
were resorted to at the Point to knock it out of such college-bred
youngsters as sought to set the fashion in the corps.

But what appetites they had! How dreamless were their hours of sleep!
How vigorous and healthful the days of martial exercise! Squad drills
were all finished now. Fully uniformed and equipped, the whole plebe
class was in the battalion. A "live" superintendent was watching
every detail of their doings. The system of responsibility among the
officers, both graduates and cadets, was such that no disturbance
of any account occurred by night, no hazing of a harmful nature by
day. The roar of the morning gun and the rattle and bang of the
drums brought Pops from his blanket with a bound. He was always
one of the first to appear in front of his tent, sousing head and
chest and arms in cool water, then rubbing the hard skin red before
dressing for roll-call. Benny, on the other hand, self-indulgent
and procrastinating, copying after the old cadets, thought it more
professional to lie abed three minutes longer, and then come flying
out at the last minute, frequently to be reported late at reveille,
and demerited accordingly. So, too, in many another matter. Howsoever
excellent he may have appeared on parade in command of the High-school
Cadets, Benny was no model on drill as a high private. His wits, too,
had a way of going wool-gathering, and while young men like Geordie and
Connell paid strict attention to business and rarely received reports
of any kind, the "Major-General" was in perpetual hot-water, and ever
ready to lay the blame on somebody else. One thing he could do to
perfection—that was make explanations. He wrote a beautiful hand. He
was plausible, pleading, and successful. He was as full of excuse as
an Irish laundress.

"He's got more reports on the delinquency books than any one in the
class," said Pops, reproachfully.

"Yes," said Connell, whimsically, "and more of 'em off."

And thereby hangs a tale.

No cadet can expect to get along without ever receiving reports. Any
boy who so desires can readily obtain reports aggregating one hundred
demerit in a single day; yet if he receive that many in six months, out
he goes into the world again, discharged for failure in discipline.
The breaches of regulation in the power of a boy to commit are simply
myriad. Only by determination to conform to rules in the first place
and eternal vigilance in the second can he live without demerit. Even
then the faintest slip—a loose button, shoestring, drawer-string, a
speck of dust, a tarnished belt-plate, an instant's mooning on drill or
parade—renders him liable. To utterly avoid report one has to be all
eyes, ears, and attention.

Now, while it is hardly possible to get along without ever receiving
a report, it is equally impossible to be perpetually receiving them
without being more or less to blame. Here was Benny's weakness. He
blamed everybody but himself, and, so believing, sought to convince
the commandant. Before camp was over it was said of him that he got off
many a report he richly deserved—a most unfortunate reputation at West
Point—for there the first lesson taught and the last insisted on was
"the truth in everything, and nothing but the truth."

As read out by the adjutant each day after parade, and posted at the
tent of the sergeant-major, the delinquency list of the corps was
a long one. Every cadet reported for an offence from "absence from
reveille" to "dusty shoes" had forty-eight hours within which to render
a written explanation, something after this form:

      Camp Reynolds, West Point, N. Y.,
      _August 1, 18—._

 _Offence._—Absent from reveille.

 _Explanation._—It was raining. The tent walls were battened down. I
 did not hear the drums until some one called me. I was in my tent all
 the time.

  Respectfully submitted,
  A. B. Smith,
  Cadet Private, Fourth Class, Company B.

A cadet reported absent from any duty had to explain and say that
he was on limits at the time or else be court-martialled. Except
for absences he need offer no explanation unless he so desired. If
satisfactory explanation were tendered, the commandant crossed off the
report; if unsatisfactory, he so indorsed the paper and sent it forward
to the superintendent four days later. The cadet had still the right to
appeal to the superintendent, but if no appeal were made it was posted
in the big record books at headquarters, and stands there yet in black
and white. It is odd to read what little blunders our biggest generals
made in their cadet days. Now Geordie got few reports, and wrote fewer
explanations. Benny spent half his time submitting excuses.

One evening there was a crowd of visitors at parade. The band had just
begun its march down the front of the motionless gray-and-white line.
The commanding officer, Lieutenant Webster, in lonely dignity, stood
with folded arms facing the colors out in front of the centre, the most
conspicuous figure on the field. Twenty paces behind him was the long,
deep rank of visitors seated on camp-chairs, chatting and laughing
in subdued tones, and watching the gray battalion on the color-line.
Suddenly a little mite of a boy, who had broken away from some
gossiping nurse, came toddling gravely forth upon the sacred ground,
and, with all the innocence and curiosity of childhood, moved slowly
yet confidently on until close to the blue-and-red-and-gold statue, and
there halted with much wonderment in the baby face, and began a careful
study of the strange, fascinating object before him. The spectators
shook with merriment. The laughter could not be controlled, and in a
moment the epidemic had reached the battalion. "The whole front rank
shook and snickered," as Geordie afterwards wrote home. Mr. Webster's
face grew redder than his trailing plume, and he bit savagely at his
lip in his effort to control his sense of the ludicrous. But when a
French _bonne_ burst through the line of visitors and charged jabbering
down on the little innocent, only to drive him full tilt in between
the battalion and its now convulsed commander, to capture him midway,
and to be pounded, pommelled, and stormed at in baby vernacular as
she bore him away, "Why, I just bust my chin-strap trying to keep
from laughing," said Connell, "and almost every plebe in the line was
'skinned' for highly unmilitary conduct, laughing in ranks at parade."
Plebes always catch it on such occasions. Geordie had controlled
himself to the extent of suppressing any sound, but Benny had gurgled
and chuckled and exclaimed aloud.

And yet when the reports were read out the next evening, and the plebes
were holding an impromptu indignation meeting, big Harry Winn stopped
and asked Graham what explanation he was going to write.

"None at all," said Pops. "I suppose I did laugh—I couldn't help it."

But Benny Frazier, who had not only laughed aloud, but uttered some
expression of boyish delight, said, "Well, you bet I don't mean to
swallow any two or three demerit if an explanation will get it off."
And Geordie looked at him without saying a word.

Two days later the colonel sent for Pops.

"Mr. Graham," he said, "you have offered no explanation for laughing in
ranks at parade; most of those reported have done so; why didn't you?"

Geordie colored, as he always did when embarrassed. Finally he said:
"The report was true, sir. I couldn't help it exactly, but—I had no
excuse."

"Well, in a case like this, where something comical really appeared,
I do not care to see a cadet punished, provided he comes forward and
explains the matter. Your tent-mate, for instance, explains it very
well, and says he couldn't help smiling a little, so I took his report
off as a matter of course. It seems to me you have allowed several
reports to stand against you that were removed in his case. I shall
remove this one. That is all, sir." And Geordie saluted, and walked
thoughtfully away.

How could Frazier truthfully say he had only smiled; or worse, how
could he imply that he did nothing else, without so saying, when
Graham and others well knew he both laughed and muttered audibly?
Geordie began to understand why it was that Frazier seldom showed his
explanations.

Yet, when Benny eagerly asked him what the colonel said, Pops knew not
how to tell him what was uppermost in his mind. And he had promised to
be Frazier's room-mate.

That evening Mr. Glenn, the adjutant, called him aside.

"Mr. Graham, your confinement in camp will expire next week, and I
understand Mr. Jennings is saying that as soon as you are released you
will have to meet either Mr. Woods or himself. I have seen Mr. Woods,
and told him that you have done all that is necessary; that he was
wrong in the first place. Now should Mr. Jennings make any demands, I
wish you to refuse, and refer him to me."

Two days later Benny Frazier, with white, scared look in his face,
said: "Pops, do you know anything about it? Jennings has just been put
in arrest—conduct unbecoming a cadet and a gentleman—and they say it's
about your rifle."




CHAPTER X


Yearling faces in camp were looking very solemn one hot August
morning. Cadet Jennings, in arrest, had sought permission to speak
to the commandant; had been granted an interview, and had come back
with very little of his old confident, even swaggering, manner. He
had been in close arrest six days, the object of much sympathy among
certain of his class-mates, because it was given out that he was to
be made an example of, all on account of suspected participation in
the trick that had deprived a plebe, temporarily at least, of his
new rifle; which, according to yearling views, he had no business
with, anyhow. Several things happened, however, which wiser heads in
the corps could not account for at all. First, Jennings had sent for
and held some confidential talk with Frazier. Frazier was seen that
night in conversation with a drummer-boy in rear of the orderly's
tent—"Asking him to get me some cigarettes," explained Benny. Two days
later the Honorable Mr. Frazier arrived at the Point, and spent a long
afternoon with his son; and saw him again in the visitors' tent that
evening. This time Mr. Frazier senior did not favor the officers with
accounts of Benny's prowess at the high-school; he even avoided them,
especially the superintendent and commandant, both of whom he referred
to subsequently as men with very narrow views of life. He spent a day
at the Falls below, and took a West Shore train and hurried away.

The last week of August came. The days were hot; the nights so chilly
that the guard wore overcoats from the posting of the first relief
after tattoo. In the distinguished quartet of occupants of plebe hotel
No. 2 of Company B three at least had been marvellously benefited
by their experience in camp—"Corporal" Graham, Connell, and Foster.
Their clear eyes and brown skin told of the perfection of health and
condition; but "Major-General" Frazier looked far from well. He was
evidently troubled in mind and body, and utterly out of sorts.

Camp was to be broken on the 29th, and the tents struck, in accordance
with the old fashion, at the tap of the drum. The furlough men would
return at noon on the 28th. Once more the ranks would be full, and
the halls and barracks echoing to the shouts of glad young voices;
but meantime a solemn function was going on—a court-martial for the
trial of certain members of the corps. Messrs. Ferguson and Folliott
of the Third Class had been "hived" absent at inspection after taps.
Lieutenant Cross, commander of Company D, who was making a bull's-eye
count about 11.30 one moonlit August evening, found these two lambs
of his flock astray, and directed Cadet Lieutenant Fish, officer of
the day, to inspect for them every half-hour. It was 2 A.M. before
they turned up—young idiots—in civil garb and false mustaches. Each
had already an overwhelming array of demerit. Each had barely escaped
deficiency at the June examination. Each felt confident his cadet
days were numbered, and so, courting a little cheap notoriety, they
determined to make a name for what used to be termed "recklessness,"
and "ran it" down to Cranston's Hotel in disguise. Their fate was
assured—dismissal—and their trial occupied no time at all. No one
recognized them while away from the Point. It was sufficient that they
were absent from their tents more than half an hour.

And then Cadet Jennings was called, and, as was the custom in those
days, Cadet Jennings had asked a First Class man to act as his counsel,
and Cadet Ross was introduced as _amicus curiæ_. The court sat in a
big vacant room in the old Academic that summer, an object of much
interest to swarms of visitors impressed by the sight of a dozen
officers solemnly assembled at a long table, clad in the full uniform
of their rank. It was also a matter of no li

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