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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
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[Illustration: Harry Castlemon]
_ROD AND GUN SERIES._
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DON GORDON’S
SHOOTING-BOX.
BY
HARRY CASTLEMON,
AUTHOR OF “THE GUNBOAT SERIES,” “BOY TRAPPER SERIES,”
“ROUGHING IT SERIES,” ETC.
[Illustration: colophon]
PHILADELPHIA:
PORTER & COATES.
COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY PORTER & COATES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE MILITARY ACADEMY 5
CHAPTER II.
DON AND BERT AT SCHOOL 18
CHAPTER III.
HAZING A “PLEBE” 36
CHAPTER IV.
THE NEW YORK BOOT-BLACK 55
CHAPTER V.
DON AND BERT HAVE VISITORS 73
CHAPTER VI.
CONY RYAN’S PANCAKES 92
CHAPTER VII.
RUNNING THE GUARD 111
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW DON GOT IN 131
CHAPTER IX.
DON’S YANKEE INVENTION 152
CHAPTER X.
BREAKING UP THE “SET” 173
CHAPTER XI.
THE STUDENTS IN CAMP 192
CHAPTER XII.
THE DESERTERS AT THE SHOW 215
CHAPTER XIII.
A NIGHT ATTACK 237
CHAPTER XIV.
DON GORDON’S SHOOTING-BOX 260
CHAPTER XV.
LESTER BRIGHAM MAKES NEW FRIENDS 285
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MAIL-CARRIER IN TROUBLE 307
CHAPTER XVII.
CONCLUSION 330
DON GORDON’S SHOOTING-BOX.
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CHAPTER I.
THE MILITARY ACADEMY.
“Well, now, I am disgusted.”
“So am I. I call it a most unusual proceeding.”
“That is a very mild term to be applied to it. _I_ call it an outrage.
The Professor has deliberately gone to work to disgrace the school and
every student in it.”
“That’s my opinion. I shall give my father a full history of the case in
the next letter I write to him; and I incline to the belief that he will
order me to pack my trunk and start for home.”
“I know that is what my father will do. Why, fellows, just think of it
for a moment! What if this street gamin, who has been brought here as
the Professor’s pet, should accidentally win a warrant at the next
examination?”
“Or a commission! That would be worse yet. Wouldn’t a gentleman’s son
look nice obeying his orders—the orders of a bootblack?”
“I’ll never do that. I’ll stay in the guard-house until I am gray-headed
first.”
“Well, I won’t. I’ll go home first.”
This conversation took place one cold, frosty morning in the latter part
of January, 18—, among the members of a little party of boys who were
walking up the path that led to the door of the Bridgeport Military
Academy. There were a dozen of them in all, and their ages varied from
thirteen to sixteen years. They looked like young soldiers, dressed as
they were in their neat, well-fitting uniforms of cadet gray, set off by
light blue trimmings; but it seems that they were anything but good
soldiers just then, for their words indicated a determination on their
part to rebel against lawful authority.
The Bridgeport Military School was a time-honored, wealthy, and
aristocratic institution. It was modeled after the school at “the
Point,” and although its course of study differed materially from that
pursued at the national academy, its rules of discipline were almost the
same. It was intended to fit boys for college, for business, for civil
or mining engineering, or for West Point, if they wanted to go there and
could command influence enough to secure the appointment; and in order
that they might begin early in life to realize the majesty and dignity
of law, and to see the necessity of submitting to it as becomes good
citizens of the republic, they were put through a course of military
drill as strict as that to which they would have been subjected if they
had been private soldiers in the regular army.
The majority of the students—there were nearly three hundred of them in
all--were deeply in love with the school, and with every body and every
thing connected with it. Although they were obliged to study hard for
seven months in the year to avoid being dropped from their classes, and
to watch themselves closely in order to keep within the rules, they were
allowed two seasons of rest and recreation during the year; a faithful
student could always obtain a pass for an evening, provided his standing
as a soldier was what it should be, and warrants and commissions were to
be obtained by anybody who was willing to work for them. More than that,
the institution was endeared to them by a thousand old-time
associations. The fathers of some of the present students had sat in
those same seats, pronounced their orations from that very rostrum,
handled those same muskets and swords, and been drilled at the identical
guns that still composed the battery, and their sons had heard them
speak in the highest terms of the benefits derived from the instructions
they had there received during the days of their boyhood. Under these
circumstances it was no wonder that the students took pride in their
school, and that the most of them had come there with the determination
that no act of theirs should in any way detract from its high and
long-established reputation.
But if these were the sentiments of some of the boys, there was a small
but busy minority who cherished feelings that were exactly the
reverse—boys who had been sent there because they could not be
controlled at home, who were restive under the restraints that were
imposed upon them, and whose sole object was to complete the course and
get away from the school with as little trouble to themselves as
possible. These were the fellows who were always in trouble. They did
not mind their hard lessons so much as they did the fatiguing drills
with muskets and broadswords. They envied the officers in their class on
account of the authority they possessed, the extra privileges that fell
to their lot, and the respect they demanded from the rest of the
students; but they were not willing to work for a commission themselves,
and they did not like those who were. They ran the guard at every
opportunity to eat pancakes with Cony Ryan, who was quite as important a
personage at Bridgeport as Benny Havens is, or used to be, at West
Point, and did penance for it the next Saturday by performing extra duty
as sentries with bricks in their knapsacks. When they saluted a member
of the class above them, as the law required them to do, they did it in
a very sullen and ungracious manner; but if a member of the class below
them neglected his duty in this respect, they were prompt to take him to
task for it.
The two meanest boys in school were Tom Fisher and Clarence Duncan, who,
at the time our story opens, had been members of the academy just two
years. They were smart enough at their books and stood well in their
classes when they felt in the humor to apply themselves; but their
record as soldiers was something of which they ought to have been
ashamed. Tom, to put it in plain English, was a sneak, and Clarence was
a bully, who boasted of his ability to whip any boy in school. These
boys had a good many adherents among the students, and if there were any
mischief done about the village it was pretty certain to be traced home
to them.
The two seasons of rest and recreation of which we have spoken were the
camping-out frolic, that came off in August, and the vacation, which
began on the 15th of September and continued until the 15th of January.
Then the boys went home to spend the holidays and show their uniforms.
When the time came to go into camp no one was excused except upon the
surgeon’s certificate of disability. In fact there were very few among
them who ever asked to be excused. Even the most studious had grown
tired of their books by this time, and were anxious to get out among the
hills where they could breathe invigorating air, go trout-fishing and
botanizing, and in various other ways brace up their nerves in readiness
for the searching examination that was to be held immediately on their
return to the academy.
This camp was intended as a school of review. Theory was reduced to
practice, and those of the students who kept their eyes and ears open,
and tried to profit by the instructions there received, were almost sure
to pass the examination with flying colors. The civil engineers surveyed
the bar in the river, just as their fathers had done before them; staked
out the best route for a canal around the falls, and laid out a railroad
and got everything in readiness for tunneling the hills to let it
through. The military engineers, under cover of a hot fire of blank
cartridges from the battery, threw pontoon bridges over the creek, and
when they were finished, the infantry, which had been concealed in a
ravine close by, charged across them and swarmed up the opposite heights
to dislodge an enemy that was supposed to be intrenched there. They
fortified the hills to prevent the approach of an invading army, sent
out scouts to scour the surrounding country, held drumhead
courts-martial, and tried everybody who was reported for any
misdemeanor; in fact, they did everything that soldiers do when they are
in the field.
Perhaps two or three days would be spent in this way, and then there
would come two or three days of rest, during which the young soldiers
would roam about the woods and fields, going wherever their fancy led
them. When the examination came off, the graduates were presented with
their diplomas and the degrees that the institution was empowered to
confer, new officers were appointed from among the students, the classes
were reorganized, new applicants were received, and everything was made
ready for work at the beginning of the new school year.
At the time of which we write the school had been in session about two
weeks. Two hundred and fifty of the old students had returned, and the
places of the large number who were graduated at the close of the last
term were filled by the second class, which became the first; the third
became the second, the fourth became the third, and the new fourth was
made up of the “Plebes” who had signed the muster-roll. Why the
new-comers were called “Plebes,” which is short for “plebeians,” it is
hard to tell. Perhaps it was because their fathers, in the days of their
boyhood, had given that name to all new scholars, or it may have been
for the reason that everybody was down on them. They certainly looked
out of place there. They still wore their citizens’ clothes, the
uniforms for which they had been measured when they first arrived not
having yet been received. They were not allowed to go on dress-parade
because they could not handle a musket; and as they had not yet been
“broken in,” they were a little too independent in their conduct to suit
the old students, who exacted the greatest show of respect from those
who were below them.
Among these “Plebes” was one whose advent created the profoundest
astonishment among some of the students. The boys we have already
introduced to the reader were talking about him as they came up the
path. They were Tom Fisher and his crowd. Having drawn the capes of
their overcoats over their heads, they were strolling leisurely along,
paying no heed to the cutting wind that swept across the snow-covered
parade-ground; but the thinly clad young fellow who came up the path
behind them was shivering violently under its influence. His hands and
face were blue with cold, and his feet were so poorly protected that he
was obliged to stop now and then and stamp them on the ground to get
them warm. The noise he made attracted the attention of Tom Fisher and
his companions, who turned to see what had occasioned it.
“Here he comes now,” exclaimed Dick Henderson, a fair-haired,
sunny-faced little fellow, whose mother would have been ashamed of him
if she had known what sort of company he was keeping at the academy.
“Say, you fellow, where are your manners?”
Only one short year ago Dick was a “Plebe” himself; but now he was a
third class boy, and he was resolved that everybody should know it and
treat him accordingly.
“Let him go, Dick,” said Tom Fisher, in a tone of disgust. “You would be
highly honored by a salute from a bootblack, wouldn’t you, now?”
“Who are these?” said Clarence Duncan, in a low tone.
Tom and his crowd looked down the path and saw two other new-comers
approaching. In appearance they were very unlike the shivering,
half-frozen boy who had just gone along the path. They were warmly clad,
wore sealskin caps and gloves, and there was something in their air and
bearing that proclaimed them to be boys who respected themselves, and
who intended that others should respect them. One of them was tall and
broad-shouldered, and carried himself as though he had never been in the
habit of submitting to any nonsense, and the other was small, slender,
and apparently delicate.
“Why, they are the Planter and his brother,” said one of the students,
all of whom had had opportunity to learn more or less of the history of
the boys who composed the fourth class. “They’re from Mississippi. Their
father is worth no end of money, and they say he gives his boys a very
liberal allowance.”
“Then they’ll be good fellows to foot the bills at Cony Ryan’s, will
they not?” said Fisher.
“They say that the little one is a saint,” chimed in Dick Henderson. “He
never does anything wrong; but his brother must be a brick, for he was
expelled from the last school he attended on account of some violation
of the rules.”
“Then he’s the fellow for us,” said Tom Fisher. “We must make it a point
to see him after taps.”
The near approach of the new-comers cut short the conversation. Tom and
his crowd strolled leisurely on, filling up the path so completely that
it was impossible for any one to pass them without stepping out into the
deep snow that had been thrown up on each side. This the new scholars
did not seem inclined to do. The smaller one came up behind Dick
Henderson, and placing the back of his hand against his arm, said
pleasantly:
“Will you be good enough to give us a little room?”
Tom and his friends faced about at once, and the former stepped up to
the speaker and laid his hand rather heavily on his shoulder.
“Look here, Plebe,” said he, in an insolent tone. “‘Subordination is of
discipline the root; when you address an old cadet, forget not to
salute.’ Mind that in future.”
“Take your hand off that boy, or I will salute you with a blow in the
face that will bury you out of sight in that snowdrift,” said he who had
been called the “Planter.”
“Who are you?” demanded Fisher.
“Take a good look at me so that you will remember me,” was the reply.
The boy drew off his gloves and pulled down his muffler, revealing the
familiar features of our old friend, Don Gordon. Just then the clear
notes of a bugle rang out on the frosty air. It was the “study call,”
and all the students within hearing made haste to respond to it.