DICK PRESCOTT'S FOURTH YEAR AT WEST POINT
or
Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps
By H. Irving Hancock
CONTENTS
CHAPTERS
I. Dick Reports a Brother Cadet
II. Jordan Reaches Out for Revenge
III. Catching a Man for Breach of "Con."
IV. The Class Committee Calls
V. The Cadet "Silence" Falls
VI. Trying to Explain to the Girls
VII. Jordan Meets Disaster
VIII. Fate Serves Dick Her Meanest Trick
IX. The Class Takes Final Action
X. Lieutenant Denton's Straight Talk
XI. The News from Franklin Field
XII. Ready to Break the Camel's Back
XIII. The Figures in the Dark
XIV. The Story Carried on the Wind
XV. The Class Meeting "Sizzles"
XVI. Finding the Baseball Gait
XVII. Ready for the Army-Navy Game
XVIII. Dan Dalzell's Crabtown Grin
XIX. When the Army Fans Winced
XX. The Vivid Finish of the Game
XXI. A Cloud on Dick's Horizon
XXII. Cadet Prescott Commands at Squadron Drill
XXIII. A West Pointer's Love Affair
XXIV. Conclusion
CHAPTER I
DICK REPORTS A BROTHER CADET
"Detachment halt!" commanded the engineer officer in charge.
Out on the North Dock at West Point the column of cadets had marched,
and now, at the word, came to an abrupt stop.
This detachment, made up of members of the first and third classes
in the United States Military Academy, was out on this August
forenoon for instruction in actual military engineering.
The task, which must be accomplished in a scant two hours, was
to lay a pontoon bridge across an indentation of the Hudson River,
this indentation being a few hundred feet across, and representing,
in theory, an unfordable river.
"Mr. Prescott!"
Cadet Richard Prescott, now a first classman, and captain of one
of the six cadet companies, stepped forward, saluting.
"You will build the bridge today, Mr. Prescott, continued the
instructor, Lieutenant Armstrong, Corps of Engineers, United States
Army.
"Very good, sir," replied Dick.
With a second salute, which was returned, Prescott turned to divide
his command rapidly into smaller detachments.
It was work over which not a moment of time could be lost. All
must be done with the greatest possible despatch, and a real bridge
was called for---not a toy affair or a half-way experiment.
"Mr. Holmes," directed Prescott, "you will take charge of the
boats. Mr. Jordan, take charge of the balk carriers!"
A balk is a heavy timber, used, in this case, in the construction
of the pontoon.
Cadet Jordan, one of the biggest men, physically, in the first
class, scowled as he received this order for what was especially
arduous duty.
"That's mean of you, Prescott," glowered Jordan.
"If you have any complaints to make, sir, make them to the instructor,"
return Cadet Captain Prescott, after a swift, astonished look at
his classmate.
"You know I can't do that," muttered Cadet Jordan. "But you-----"
"Silence, sir, and attend to your duty!"
Then, raising his voice to one of general command, Prescott called:
"Construct the bridge!"
Jordan fell back, with a surly face and a muttered imprecation, to
take command of the squad of yearlings, or third classman who must
serve in carrying the heavy balks.
In the meantime Dick's roommate, Greg Holmes, had hurried his
squad away to the flat-bottomed, square-ended pontoon boats, placing
his crews therein.
Almost instantly, it seemed, Greg had placed the first boat in
position.
"Lay the balks!" ordered Dick Prescott.
Cadet Jordan moved forward with some of his yearlings, who carried
the heavy balks, or flooring timbers, on their shoulders. It was
hot, hard work---"thankless," as the young men often termed it in
private.
These balks were laid across the first pontoon.
As quickly as the balks had been laid the detachment of lashers were
at work securing the balks in place.
"Shove off!"
The first was floated to the mooring stakes and a second boat
was moved into position.
"Chess!"
Another column of yearlings moved forward, each with a heavy plank
on his shoulder. It was heavy, hot, hard and dirty work. Outsiders
who imagine that the Military Academy is engaged in turning out
"uniformed dudes" should see this work done by the cadets.
Almost with the speed of magic the planks were laid in an orderly
manner forming a secure flooring over the balks.
The second boat was anchored, and then a third, a fourth. As the
bridge grew Cadet Prescott walked out on the flooring that he
might be at the best point for directing the efforts.
As the fifth boat reached its position, Dick turned to see that
all was going well.
The yearlings, whose duty it was to carry the balks---"balk-chasers,"
they were termed unofficially---were standing idle, though alert.
They could not move until Mr. Jordan, of the first class, gave the
order.
And Jordan? With one hand hanging at his side, the other resting
against the small of his back, he stood gazing absently out over
the Hudson.
"Mr. Jordan!" called Dick, hastening back over the planking.
"Sir!" answered the surly cadet, facing him.
"Hurry up the balks, if you please, sir."
With a scowl, Jordan turned slowly toward the waiting yearlings.
"Lay hold!" commanded Jordan, and, though it was hard work, the
yearlings responded willingly. This was what they were here for,
and this hard work was all part of the training that was to fit
them for command after they were graduated.
"All possible speed, Mr. Jordan!" admonished Prescott, with a
tinge of impatience in his voice.
"Lay hold! Raise! Shoulder!" drawled Mr. Jordan, with tantalizing
slowness.
The yearling squad, each man feeling the cut of the sharp corners
of the heavy balk on his right shoulder, yet, bearing it patiently,
awaited the next command.
"Mr. Jordan, this is not a loafing contest," admonished Prescott
in a low voice.
"For---ward!" ordered Jordan with provoking deliberation.
The yearlings under him, made of vastly better material, sprang
forward with their balks, laying them in record time across the
top of the next pontoon. The lashers then fell upon their work
of securing the balks as though they loved labor.
"Chess!" called Dick, remaining on shore this time, and the yearlings
with the planks hastened forward, each carrying a plank. Here
and there, a lighter cadet staggered somewhat under the plank
he was carrying, yet hastened forward to finish his duty of the
moment with military speed.
Another pontoon was ready.
"Balks!" called Cadet Prescott. "Balks!"
Jordan got his squad started at last.
Dick glanced swiftly, but in wonder at Lieutenant Armstrong.
That Army officer, however, seemed industriously thinking about
something else.
"Jordan is truly taking charge of the balks!" muttered Prescott
to himself. "He is going to balk me so that I can't get the bridge
constructed before recall!"
"Running the balk chasers" is always unpopular work among the
cadets. Properly done, this work calls for a great deal of alertness,
speed and precision. It is work that takes every moment of the
cadet's time and attention, and incessant running in the hot sun.
Yet Prescott had, before this, chased the balk carriers, and
had not objected. He had taken up that task as he did all others,
as part of the day's work, something to be done speedily, well
and uncomplainingly.
"What's the matter with you, Mr. Jordan?" asked Dick in an undertone.
"Are you sick?"
"Sick of such emigrant's jobs as this!" growled Jordan. "What
made you give me-----"
"I can't discuss that with you," replied Cadet Dick Prescott coldly.
"I shall be compelled to make it an official matter, however, if you
hinder me any more."
"Lay hold! Raise! Shoulder! Forward!" Jordan ran with the squad.
"Halt! Lower!"
"I reckon Jordan means to keep really on the job now," murmured
Prescott to himself, and returned to the advancing end of the
pontoon as it crawled over the little arm of the Hudson.
Two more boats, however, and then Dick sprang sternly ashore.
"Mr. Anstey!" called Prescott, and Anstey, the sweet-tempered
Virginian, one of Dick's staunchest friends in the corps of cadets,
came quickly up, saluting.
"Mr. Anstey, you will chase the balk carriers," directed Dick.
"Please try to make up the time that has been lost. Mr. Jordan,
you are relieved from your duty, and will report yourself to the
instructor for gross lack of promptness in executing orders!"
There could be no mistaking the quality of the justly aroused
temper that lay behind Cadet Prescott's flashing blue eyes.
As for Cadet Jordan, that young man's face went instantly livid.
He clenched his fists, while the blackness of a storm was on
his features.
"Mr. Prescott," he demanded, "do you realize what you are
saying---what you are doing?"
"You are relieved. You will report yourself to the instructor,
sir!" Dick cut in tersely.
Anstey was already chasing the yearling squad out with the balks,
and the young men were moving fast.
As for Dick Prescott, he did not favor Mr. Jordan with a further
glance or word, but walked with swift step back to the task of
which he was in charge.
With face flushed, Mr. Jordan walked over to the instructor, reporting
himself as directed.
"Dismissed from to-day's instruction," said the Army officer briefly.
"Wait and return with the detachment, however."
So Cadet Jordan, first class, saluted, turned on his heel, sought
the nearest shady spot and sat down to wait.
His body idle, the young man had plenty of time to think---about
Cadet Captain Dick Prescott.
"There's nothing to Prescott but swagger and cheap airs," decided
Mr. Jordan, idly tossing pebbles. "It's a pity he can't be taken
down a peg or two! And now I'm in for demerits before the academic
year starts. Probably I shall have to walk punishment tours, too!"
Somehow, Jordan had come along through his more than three years
in the corps without attracting much attention.
He had made no strong friends; even Jordan's roommate, Atterbury,
felt that he knew the man but slightly.
True, Jordan had not so far been strongly suspected of being morose
or surly; he had escaped being ostracized, but he certainly was
not popular. If he had made no strong friendships, neither had
he so deported himself as to win enmity or even dislike. He was
regarded simply as a very taciturn fellow who desired to be let
alone, and his apparent wish in this respect was gratified.
Dick Prescott was of an entirely different character. Open, sunny,
frank, manly, he was a born leader among men, as he had always
been among boys.
Dick was a stickler for duty. He was in training to become an
officer of the Regular Army of the United States, and Prescott
felt that no man could be a good soldier until the duty habit
had become fixed. So, in his earlier years at West Point, Dick
had sometimes been unpopular with certain elements among the cadets
because he would not greatly depart from what he believed to be
his duty as a cadet and a gentleman.
Readers of the _High School Boys' Series_ will recall that Prescott,
in his home town of Gridley, had been the head of Dick & Co.,
a sextette of chums and High School athletes. It was in his High
School days that young Prescott had developed the qualities of
manliness which the Military Academy at West Point was now rounding
off for him.
Readers of the preceding volumes in this series, _Dick Prescott's
First Year at West Point_, _Dick Prescott's Second Year at West
Point_ and _Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point_, are already
familiar with the young man's career as a cadet at the United
States Military Academy. Our readers know how hard the fight
had been for Dick Prescott, who, in addition to his early struggles
to keep his place in scholarship in the corps, had been submitted
to the evil work of enemies in the corps. Some of these enemies
had been exposed in the end, and forced to leave the Military
Academy, but many had been the bitter hours that Prescott had
spent under one cloud or another as the result of the wicked work
of these enemies.
At last, however, Prescott and his roommate and chum, Greg Holmes,
had reached the first class. They had now less than a year to go
before they would be graduated and commissioned as officers in the
Army.
On reaching first-class dignity, both Dick and Greg had been delighted
over their appointment as cadet officers. Prescott was captain
of A company and Greg Holmes first lieutenant of the same company.
With Anstey chasing the balk carriers, and all the other squads
attending briskly to business, the pontoon was quickly built, so
that a roadway extended from shore to shore.
Now came the supreme test as to whether Prescott had done his
work well.
In the shade of the nearest trees a team of mules had dozed while
the bridge construction was going on. Behind the mules was hitched
a loaded wagon belonging to the Engineer Corps.
"Sir," reported Prescott, approaching Lieutenant Armstrong and
saluting, "I have the honor to report that the bridge is constructed."
Lieutenant Armstrong returned the salute, next called to an engineer
soldier.
"Carter!"
"Sir," answered the engineer private, saluting.
"Drive your team over the bridge and back."
Mounting to the seat of his wagon, the soldier obeyed.
Dick Prescott and his mates did not watch this test closely.
They were sure enough of the quality of the work that they had
done.
Reaching land at the further side of the bridge, the engineer
soldier turned his team in a half circle, once more drove upon
the bridge and recrossed to the starting point.
"Very well done, Mr. Prescott," nodded the Engineer officer, with
a satisfied smile.
"Take down the bridge," ordered Dick, after having saluted the
Army instructor.
Working as hard as before, the young men of the third and first
classes began to demolish the bridge that they had constructed.
When this had been done, and Dick had officially reported the
fact, Lieutenant Armstrong replied:
"Mr. Prescott, you will form your detachment and march back to
camp."
"Very good, sir."
Always that same salute with which a man in the Army receives
an order.
Some thirty seconds later, the detachment was formed and Dick
was marching it back up the inclined road on the way to the summer
encampment. By that time, a sergeant and a squad of Engineer
privates---soldiers of the Regular Army---were busy taking care
of the pontoon boats and other bridge material.
Marching his men inside the encampment, Dick halted them.
"Detachment dismissed!" he called out.
There was a quick break for first and third class tents. These
young men were in field uniforms---sombreros, gray flannel shirts,
flannel trousers and leggings. Most of them were dripping with
perspiration under the hot August sun.
They were all hot and dusty, and their hands stained with tar.
Within a very few minutes every man in the detachment must be
washed irreproachably clean, without sign of perspiration. They
must be in uniforms of immaculate white duck trousers and gray
fatigue blouses, wearing cleanly polished shoes, and ready to
march to dinner.
A great deal to be accomplished in a few minutes by the average
American boy! Yet let one of these cadets be late at dinner formation,
without an unquestionably good excuse, and he must pay the penalty
in demerits. These demerits, according to their number, bring
loss of prized privileges.
Cadet Jordan, having done little, was among the first to be clean
and presentable. Immaculate, trim and trig he looked as he stepped
from his tent, but on his face lay a scowl that boded ill for his
appetite at the coming dinner.
Dick was a master of swift toilets. He was on the company street
almost immediately after Jordan had stepped out under the shadow
of a tree.
"Prescott," began Jordan stiffly, "I want a word or two with you."
"Yes?" asked Dick, looking keenly at his classmate. "Very good."
"Why did you report me this morning?"
"Because you performed the work in an indolent, laggard manner,
even after I had cautioned you."
"Do you consider yourself called upon to be a judge of your
classmates?"
"When I am detailed in command over them in any duty---yes."
"Shall I tell you what I think of you for reporting me?"
"It would be in bad taste, at least," Dick answered. "It is against
the regulations for a cadet to call another to account for reporting
him officially."
"Oh, bother the regulations!"
"If that is actually your view," replied Dick, with a smile, "then
I will leave you to the enjoyment of your discovery concerning the
regulations."
"Prescott, you are a prig!" snapped Mr. Jordan.
"If it were necessary to determine that, as a matter of fact,"
answered Dick coolly, though he flushed somewhat, "I would rather
leave it to a decision of the class."
"Oh, I know you have plenty of bootlicks," sneered Jordan. "I
also know that you are class president. But that is no reason
why you should act as though you thought yourself a bigger man
than the President of the United States."
"Jordan, has the sun been affecting your head this forenoon?"
demanded Dick, with another keen look at his classmate.
"Well, you do act as though you thought yourself bigger than the
President," insisted Jordan sneeringly.
"I am a cadet, not yet capable of being a second lieutenant, in
the Army," Dick replied, regaining his coolness. "The President
is commander-in-chief of the combined Army and Navy."
"You are utterly puffed up with your own importance," cried Jordan
hotly, though in a discreetly low voice. "Prescott, you are-----"
Something in Jordan's eyes warned Dick that a vile insult was
coming in an instant.
"_Stop_!" commanded Prescott, shooting a look full of warning
at his classmate. "Jordan, don't say anything that will compel
me to knock you down in plain sight of the camp. It's years since
such a thing as that has happened at West Point!"
"Oh, you lordly brute!" sneered Jordan, his face alternately white
and aflame with unreasoning anger. "Prescott, you had it in for
me. That was why you reported me this morning. That was why
you put me in line for demerits and punishment tour walking.
You are bound to use your little, petty authority to humble and
humiliate me. I shall call you out for this!"
"If you do," shot back Dick, "I shall decline to fight you.
It would be against regulations and against all the traditions
of the corps for me to arbitrate, by a fight, the question of
whether I did right to report you."
"You refuse a fight," warned Jordan, with a malicious grin, "and
I'll denounce you all through the class!"
"Denounce me, then, if you wish," retorted Dick in cool contempt,
"and you'll bring trouble down on your own head instead. No class
requires, or permits, a member to fight in defence of his official
conduct."
"Prescott is turning coward, then, is he?"
"You or any other man who presumes to say it knows well enough
that he is thereby lying," came quickly from between Prescott's
teeth.
"Why, hang you, you-----"
"You'd better hush for a moment," warned Prescott. "Here comes
the corps adjutant, and I think he is looking for you."
"Yes! With a message of discipline from the O.C. just because
I was reported by a toy martinet like you!" retorted Cadet Jordan.
Cadet Filson, corps adjutant, wearing his white gloves, red sash
and sword, came up with brisk military stride. He halted before
Jordan, while Prescott moved away.
"Mr. Jordan, by order of the commandant of cadets, you will confine
yourself to the company street, leaving it only under proper orders.
This, for being reported this morning during the tour of engineer
instruction. Any further punishment that is to be meted out to you
will be published in orders at dress parade this afternoon.
"Very good, sir," replied Cadet Jordan, choking with rage.
Wheeling about, Adjutant Filson strode away again.
The moment he was gone, Jordan, his brow black with fury, stepped
over to Prescott.
"So!" he hissed. "The thunderbolt of punishment has fallen, Mr.
Prescott. As for you-----"
"Mr. Jordan," broke in Dick coolly, "you are ordered to confine
yourself to the company street. At this moment you are outside
that limit. You will return immediately to the company street!"
Jordan glared, but he had discretion enough left to obey, for
Prescott was speaking now as cadet commander of A company, to
which company Mr. Jordan belonged.
"Oh, I'll pay you back for this!" raged the disciplined cadet,
trembling as he stepped forward.
By this time, many other cadets were out in the company street.
Soon after the loud, snappy tones of the bugle summoned the two
battalions to dinner formation.
A little while before Cadet Adjutant Filson had approached Jordan,
the commandant of cadets, sitting in his tent over by post number
one, had sent for the Engineer instructor of the forenoon.
"Mr. Armstrong," asked the commandant, "how much is there in this
report against Mr. Jordan this morning? Does Mr. Jordan deserve
severe discipline?"
"In my opinion he does, sir," replied Lieutenant Armstrong. "I
had the whole happening under observation, though I pretended not
to see it."
"Why did you make such pretence, Mr. Armstrong?"
"Because I was watching to see how a man like Mr. Prescott would
conduct himself when in command."
Lieutenant Armstrong then related all of the particulars that
he had seen of Jordan's conduct.
"Then I am very glad that Mr. Prescott reported Mr. Jordan," replied
the commandant of cadets. "Mr. Jordan is a first classman and
should be above any such conduct. We will confine Mr. Jordan
to his company street for one week; and on Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons during the continuance of the encampment, he shall
walk punishment tours."
Then the commandant of cadets had passed the word for Cadet Adjutant
Filson, to whom he had entrusted the order that the reader has
already seen delivered.
But Jordan, unable to realize that he had proved himself unfit
as a soldier found his hatred of Dick Prescott growing with every
step of the march that carried the cadet corps to dinner at the
cadet mess hall.
"Prescott may feel mighty big and proud now!" growled the disgruntled
one. "But will he---when I get through with him?"