August came, and the Fraziers went, promising: to return for the 28th.
Once more all the influences that a mother's love can devise had been
brought to bear on those members of Benny's class whose friendship
he either claimed or desired. Connell had been besieged with smiles,
and would have been overwhelmed with attentions but for his sturdy
determination "not to be bought." Then came open rupture. As first
sergeant he had rebuked Frazier for falling in with belts disarranged
at parade, and attempting to adjust them in ranks. Benny was piling up
demerit, and yet taking every possible liberty, and doing a good deal
of angry talking behind Connell's back when reported. This time Connell
left his place in front of the centre and walked down opposite his
class-mate.
"Fall out, Frazier. You know perfectly well you have no business in
ranks in that shape. Fall out, and fix your belts." And Frazier,
scowling and muttering sulkily, obeyed. Connell overheard something
that sounded very like "putting on too many airs; boning military at
a class-mate's expense," as he started back to his post, and whirled
about, quick as a cat.
"Class-mate or no class-mate, you cannot appear in ranks of this
company in that shape, and I want no words about it," he said. Then
as Benny, hanging his head and refusing to meet his eyes, bunglingly
fastened his belt, Connell went on to the right of the company. They
were standing at ease by this time, and as soon as Connell was well out
of hearing, Frazier again began:
"You're taking advantage of your size, that's what you're doing, Mr.
Connell; and you wouldn't dare to speak to me in that tone if you
weren't altogether too big for me to tackle."
Geordie heard this. He could not help hearing it, but before he could
warn Benny to say no more of that, the cadet captain called the company
to attention, and began his inspection. That night, after tattoo,
Connell said to Geordie:
"I hear that Frazier declared I was taking advantage of my size. Did
you hear it?" And Pops refused to answer.
"I don't mean to see any more trouble between you and Benny if I can
help it, Con," said he. "He's making an ass of himself, but there
sha'n't be any row if I can prevent it."
[Illustration: "THE CADET CAPTAIN BEGAN HIS INSPECTION"]
But Pops couldn't prevent it. Connell went wrathfully in search of
Benny, charged him with what had been said, and demanded that he either
affirm or deny it, and Benny could not deny; there were altogether too
many witnesses.
"I _am_ too heavy to take advantage of you in any way," said Connell,
as soon as he could control his temper sufficiently, "but in the whole
class or the whole corps I challenge you to find one man who will say I
have imposed in the faintest degree upon you. If you can, I'll beg your
pardon; if not, by Jupiter, you must beg mine!"
So far from finding any one to agree with him, for even his tent-mates
had to admit they thought he deserved all he got, and was lucky in not
being reported for muttering when spoken to on duty—a report which
carried heavy punishment—Benny ran foul of a Tartar. Little Brooks, who
was slighter and shorter than himself, fired up when Frazier appealed
to him, and said: "Connell was perfectly right, and you were utterly
wrong. You've been wrong all along ever since we came in camp. You've
imposed on him in every way you dared, and simply forced him to 'skin'
you, or else stand convicted of showing you partiality. That's my
opinion, since you ask it; and if I were in Connell's place you'd eat
your words or fight—one of the two."
This was a stunner, as Winn put it. Benny now had no recourse but to
challenge Brooks, as, indeed, Benny himself well knew. It was either
that or a case of being "sent to Coventry."
"My parents are here, as you very probably considered when you made
your remarks, Mr. Brooks," said he, magnificently. "I do not wish to
fight while they're here. They go on Saturday, and then we can settle
this."
"Any time you please, only don't wait too long," was Brooks's reply.
But they didn't go Saturday. They stayed several days longer. Meantime
Frazier accused Geordie of having reported his language to Connell. He
also told his mother of this new act of meanness on Graham's part. Mrs.
Frazier could not understand such base ingratitude. If that was the
result of being brought up in the army, she hoped her boy would quit
the service as soon as possible after graduation. Frazier apologized to
Connell with very bad grace. But while that ended hostilities, so far
as they were concerned, Connell told him in plain words that he owed
still another apology. "You have given your relations to understand,"
he said, "that it was Graham who reported your language to me. It was
Graham who refused to do it." All the same, Benny did not take the
trouble to undo the wrong he had done, and set Geordie right with his
mother and friends.
The Fraziers were gone by the first week in August, however, and then
Benny had a disordered stomach of some kind, and Dr. Brett excused him
two days, but sent him about his business on the third, saying there
was nothing on earth the matter with him but eating too much pastry and
smoking cigarettes. Then Benny had several confinements to serve, and
sent word to Mr. Brooks, who was waxing impatient, that there'd be time
enough after he got out of confinement and could go to Fort Clinton.
Brooks replied that if it would be any accommodation he'd cut supper
that evening, and they could "have it out" in the company street when
camp was deserted, but Frazier declined. By the second week in August
the boy found he was considered a shirk, and in order to prove his
willingness to fight he carried his bullying of a shy, silent, lanky
plebe to a point the poor fellow couldn't stand. He was taller than
Frazier, but had not the advantage of the year's gymnastic training,
and Benny won an easy victory, but only over the plebe. It was evident
his class-mates were still shy of him.
Then he came to Geordie and asked him to be his second, and carry his
challenge to Brooks. He wanted the indorsement that such seconding
would carry, but Geordie refused.
"Why not?" asked Benny, hotly.
"For two reasons. First, because I agree with Brooks; and second,
because you have no right whatever to ask me to second you."
Benny went off, aflame with indignation, to report Graham's monstrous
conduct. Some of the class said Geordie was entirely right; others
replied that there were plenty to second him even if Pops wouldn't, and
at last poor Benny found there was no help for it. He had to meet that
fierce little C Company bantam, and he did; but the fight wasn't worth
telling about. Benny couldn't be coaxed to get up after the second
knock-down. He was scientifically hammered for about thirty seconds,
and that was quite enough. He was so meek for a few days thereafter
that even the plebes laughed.
And now the foolish boy decided it due to his dignity to "cut Graham
cold," which means to refuse to speak to or recognize a fellow-cadet
at all—a matter that hardly helped him in his class, and this was the
state of affairs between them until the end of camp.
Geordie really felt it more than he showed. He hated to be misjudged,
yet was too proud to require any further words. Between him and
Connell, Ames, Winn, Benton, Rogers, and men of that stamp in the
class the bonds of friendship were constantly strengthening. B Company
kept up a good name for discipline during camp, thanks to Connell's
thoroughly soldierly work as first sergeant, and the cadet captain's
even-tempered methods. Geordie, as third sergeant, had few occasions
to assert his authority or come in unpleasant contact with upper-class
men serving as privates. He was content, hopeful, happy. He spent one
or two evenings looking on at the hops, but the more he looked the more
boyish his class-mates appeared as contrasted with the cavaliers he had
been accustomed to watch at Fort Reynolds; so he and Connell preferred
listening to the music from a distance. On Saturdays they clambered
over the glorious heights that surrounded them, made long explorations
among the mountains, and had many a splendid swim in the Hudson. They
kept up their dancing-lessons "for First Class camp," as they said, and
to that they were already looking forward.
At last came the rush of visitors for the closing week in camp, the
return of the pallid-faced furlough-men, the surrender of their offices
to the _bona fide_ sergeants, and Geordie and Connell found themselves
shoulder to shoulder in the front rank on the right of Company B. Three
days later, and with the September sunshine pouring in their window on
the south side of barracks, the two corporals were room-mates at last.
Connell being already hailed among his class-mates as "Badger," in
honor of his State, the next thing Geordie knew some fellow suggested
that there was no use calling him "corporal" when he really was a
corporal and would be a sergeant in less than a year, and so, Connell
being "Badger," why not find a characteristic name for Pops. "Call
him _Ki_ote," suggested Fowler, who came from far Nebraska, and gave
the frontiersman's pronunciation to the Spanish _coyote_—the prairie
wolf. And so it happened that the two Western chums started their
house-keeping for the Third Class year under the firm name of "Badger &
Coyote."
Meantime Benny Frazier, staggering under a heavy weight of demerit and
the ill-concealed distrust of a number of his class, had moved into the
room across the hall. Connell and Geordie had hoped they would not find
themselves in the same division, but the matter seemed unavoidable.
Benny's chum was a college-bred young fellow of some twenty years of
age, with a love for slang, cigarettes, and fast society. His name was
Cullen. No steadiness could be expected there. Extremes met in the two
cadet households at the south end of the third division "cock-loft"
that beautiful autumn, and, except as extremes, they hardly met at all.
There was little intercourse between the rooms. Cullen sometimes came
into borrow matches, soap, postage-stamps, or something or other of
that ilk; Benny never.
Studies began at once as they did the previous year, and Geordie
started about the middle of the fourth section in mathematics and in
the fifth in French. In determining his general standing this year
he would have no English study to aid him. He must do his best with
analytical and calculus, with French and drawing, and for drawing he
had little or no taste. It was with gloomy foreboding, therefore, that
the boy began his work, for there was every prospect of his standing
lower in January than at the beginning of the term. Frankly he wrote
home his fears, and his eyes filled when he read the loving, confident
replies. Both father and mother were well content with his record, and
bade him borrow no trouble. Even if French and drawing should pull him
down a few files, what mattered it?
Buddie was enthusiastically happy, however, for when the revision of
the cadet appointments was announced very few changes were made except
among the corporals. Benton held his place as first, Connell rose from
fourth to third, Ames, more studious than military, dropped a few
files, and Geordie made the biggest rise of anybody. From fourteenth he
climbed to eighth, jumping among others Crandal, and this in Buddie's
eyes was better than standing high in scholarship.
With all his earnest nature Geordie threw himself into the work before
him. Connell, with his clear, logical head and steady application,
speedily proved of the utmost service to his less brilliant chum, for,
so far from resenting request for explanation, he was perpetually
inquiring if Geordie saw through this, that, and the other thing, and
resenting, if anything, the reluctance of his room-mate to ask for aid
instead of wasting time groping in the dark.
"Well," said Pops, "I don't want to give up until certain I can't do it
myself, and it takes time."
This in itself was a far better condition of things than existed the
previous year. Then there was another. Connell was every bit as orderly
and careful as Pops. He held that it was unsoldierly to be indifferent
to regulations. From first to last of September neither received a
single demerit, and Connell was winning high and Graham good marks in
every academic duty.
[Illustration: "THE SKIRMISH DRILLS WERE FULL OF SPIRIT AND INTEREST"]
The autumn weather was gorgeous. The afternoon battalion and skirmish
drills were full of spirit and interest. Then came early October,
early frosts, gorgeous foliage all over the heights, and, above all,
their first lessons in the riding-hall. The year of gymnastic training
had measurably prepared them, and Frazier had ridden, so he informed
his cronies, ever since he was big enough to straddle a Shetland;
he therefore was all impatience to show the class how perfectly he
was at home _à cheval_. But like many and many another youth,
poor Benny found there was a vast difference between sitting a natty
English pigskin on a bridlewise and gaited steed, and riding a rough,
hard-mouthed cavalry "plug," whose jaws and temper had been wrenched
by his abnormal employment as a draught-horse at battery drill. Three
days' chafing sent Frazier to hospital, while Pops rode higher into
popular favor.
"Coyote may be no mathematician," said Winn, who, as a Kentuckian, was
authority on horse matters, "but he can outride any man in this class,
by jinks! and give points to many a fellow in the others."
When December came Geordie's patient, steadfast work had begun to
tell. Drawing proved no such stumbling-block as he expected. He
found himself clumsy at first in topographical work, yet gradually
becoming interested and skilful. His score was the exact reverse of
Frazier's. Starting with his usual easy dash and confidence, Benny's
performances the first few weeks won high marks, while Geordie's
"goose-tracks" were rewarded with nothing above 2. As weeks wore on
the steadfast workers began to challenge Frazier for place. One after
another Benton, Ames, and certain lesser lights climbed above him.
Then he grew reckless, and the week before the Christmas holidays
Graham's mark was better than that of the quondam head of the class.
So, too, in French. Geordie never could succeed in reading or speaking
the language in which Frazier was idiomatic fluency itself, but he
knew more about its grammatical structure, and his translations were
accurate, and even at times scholarly. The January examination, to
which Graham had looked forward with such dread, because he believed he
must go down, passed off with very different results. He had gained two
files in mathematics, ten in languages, and twelve in drawing. As for
discipline, he and Connell stood among the very leaders.
"Stick to it, Geordie boy," wrote Lieutenant McCrea, "we're proud of
you. I have bet Lane you will be one of the four first sergeants in
June and up among the twenties in class rank." As for his mother's
letter, Geordie read it with eyes that grew so wet the loving words
began to swim and dance, and soon were blotted out entirely.
Then came the long uphill pull to furlough June—that blessed, blissful,
half-way resting-place so eagerly looked forward to. If it meant joy
to fourscore stalwart young fellows, who for two years had been living
a life of absolute routine and discipline, what did it not promise
to fond, yearning mother hearts at home—to mother eyes pining for
the sight of the brave boy faces so long denied them? To Pops and
Connell the days sped swiftly by, because they wasted no hours in idle
dreaming. With them the watchword was ever, "Act, act in the living
present."
April artillery drills, the dash and whirl and thunder of light battery
work, were upon them before they realized it, and away before they
thought it possible. But there was drag and trouble and tribulation in
the room across the hall.
Narrowly escaping discharge on account of demerit in January, both
Frazier and his room-mate began the new year with a whole volume of
punishments and confinements. "Extras breed extras" used to be the
saying in the corps. There was a time during Christmas holidays when
Benny's room was a sort of "open day and night" restaurant, where all
the reckless spirits in the battalion were assembled, where demerit
seemed to live in the air and be carried like microbes of disease all
over the barracks. On May 1st it was known that Frazier had hardly
three demerit to run on until the 1st of June, and that calculus had
tripped and thrown him as predicted. Down to the second section went
the proud head of the year before, and then in the midst of trials
at the Point came tidings of tribulation at home. Mr. Frazier senior
had been taken strangely and suddenly ill; had suffered from a
partial stroke of paralysis. Benny applied for leave for two days. The
superintendent telegraphed for particulars, and on reply refused the
application. There was no immediate danger, said the physician. There
had been business worries and losses, but the stroke was not fatal.
Then Pops and Connell noticed that Mr. Jennings, who still hung on
near the foot of his class, was paying frequent visits to Frazier when
the latter, being in confinement, could not get out. Twice they heard
high words, but in all the excitement of the coming of June and the
examinations, the delirious joy of trying on the civilian dress they
were now as eager to appear in as they were to get out of it and into
"cadets" two years before, Benny's affairs attracted little attention.
At last came graduating day of the First Class, the announcements of
the new officers in the battalion, and Pops and Connell, whose chevrons
as corporals rubbed one against the other for the last time in the
ranks of the color guard that morning, shook hands the instant "rest"
was ordered, the centre of a fire of chaff and congratulation.
"The firm of 'Badger & Coyote' is dissolved," laughed Harry Winn,
for Connell was promoted first sergeant of Company D, and Geordie,
who called the roll of old K Troop in Arizona when he was but a
four-year-old, was destined for a year to do similar service as cadet
first sergeant of Company B; "and I'd rather have you than any man I
know," said his new captain, Bend, the first sergeant of their company
in their plebe camp, that very night.
And then came the result of the examination. Rising to thirty-first
in mathematics, thirtieth in French, and twenty-second in drawing,
standing among the first in discipline, Geordie was out of the thirties
and into the twenties at last; and two days later he and Connell—the
happiest boys in all America—were speeding westward together. "First
sergeants and furlough-men, Pops," said Con; "who'd 'a' thought it two
years ago? Certainly not Frazier."
Alas, poor Benny! Loaded down with demerit, he was held at the Point
when his class-mates scattered for home.