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Transcriber's note:
"Lieut. Frederick Garrison" is a pseudonym used by Upton
Sinclair.
[Illustration: "Cadet Mallory received a letter from a friend." (See
page 7)]
ON GUARD
Or
Mark Mallory's Celebration
by
LIEUT. FREDERICK GARRISON, U. S. A.
Author of "Off for West Point," "A West Point Treasure,"
"A Cadet's Honor," etc.
[Illustration: Boy's Own Library]
Philadelphia
David Mckay, Publisher
610 South Washington Square
Copyright, 1903
By Street & Smith
On Guard
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--A Letter from a "Furlough Man" 7
II.--Mark's Idea 15
III.--A New Ally 22
IV.--A Surprise for the Seven 31
V.--The Scheme Succeeds 36
VI.--What Mark Overheard 46
VII.--Mark's Counterplot 57
VIII.--The Attack on Mark 65
IX.--Three Discomfited Yearlings 74
X.--Texas Runs Amuck 80
XI.--Texas Raids West Point 91
XII.--The Cause of a Friend 103
XIII.--The Reformation of Texas 110
XIV.--A Plot of the Yearlings 118
XV.--The Plebes Plot, Too 128
XVI.--Setting the Trap 133
XVII.--The Result at the Hop 141
XVIII.--A Strange Announcement 149
XIX.--Texas Turns Highwayman 160
XX.--Two Midnight Prowlers 167
XXI.--Benny is Exposed 178
XXII.--Mark Receives a Committee 183
XXIII.--A Fight, and Other Things 199
XXIV.--Six to the Rescue 208
XXV.--Mark in the Hospital 216
XXVI.--Texas Has an Interview 224
XXVII.--A Plot to Beat "the General" 232
XXVIII.--"Bull" Finds an Ally 241
XXIX.--Strange Conduct 250
XXX.--A Surprise for Murray 256
XXXI.--The Plot Succeeds 265
XXXII.--Triumph--Conclusion 277
ON GUARD.
CHAPTER I.
A LETTER FROM A "FURLOUGH MAN."
"A letter for me, did you say?"
The speaker was a tall, handsome lad, a plebe at the West Point Military
Academy. At the moment he was gazing inquiringly out of the tent door at
a small orderly.
The boy handed him an envelope, and the other glanced at it.
"Cadet Mark Mallory, West Point, N. Y.," was the address.
"I guess that's for me," he said. "Thank you. Hello in there, Texas!
Here's a letter from Wicks Merritt."
This last remark was addressed to another cadet in the tent. "Texas,"
officially known as Jeremiah Powers, a tall, rather stoop-shouldered
youth, with a bronzed skin and a pair of shining gray eyes, appeared in
the doorway and watched his friend with interest while he read.
"What does he say, Mark?" he inquired, when the latter finished.
"Lots," responded Mark. "Lots that'll interest our crowd. They ought to
be through sprucing up by this time, so bring 'em over here and I'll
read it."
"Sprucing up" is West Point for the morning house-cleaning in the summer
camp. A half hour is allowed to it immediately after breakfast, and it
is followed by "the A. M. inspection."
In response to Mark's suggestion, Texas slipped over to the tent in back
of theirs in "B Company" Street, and called its three occupants. They
came over and joined those in Mark's tent; and then Mark took out the
letter he had just received.
"I've got something here," said he, "that I think ought to interest all
of us. I guess I'll have time to read it before inspection. We are a
secret society, aren't we?"
"That's what we are," assented the other six.
"But what's that got to do with it?" added Texas.
"And we've banded ourselves together for the purpose of preventing the
yearlings from hazing us?" continued Mark, without noticing his friend's
inquiry. "Well, it seems that they've been doing about the same thing
down at Annapolis, too. This is from Wicks Merritt, a second class cadet
up here, who's home on furlough this summer. He took a trip to
Annapolis, and this is what he says. Listen very dutifully now, and
don't get impatient:
"DEAR MALLORY: I have heard a lot about you since the
last time I wrote. Several of the fellows have written
to me, and they haven't been able to mention anything
but you. They tell me you are kicking up a fine old
fuss in West Point during my absence. They say that
you won't let anybody haze you. They say that you've
gotten a lot of plebes around you to back you up, and
that the yearlings are half wild in consequence.
"I don't know what to make of you. You always were an
extraordinary genius, and I suppose you have to do
things in your own sweet way, whether it's rescuing
ferryboats or sailboats or express trains, or else
locking us yearlings in ice houses. I cannot imagine
what will be the end of the matter. I am sure the
yearlings will never give in.
"I'm told that when they tried to lick you into
submission you did up Billy Williams, the best fighter
in the class. Also that Bull Harris, whom I warned you
against as being a sneaky fellow, tried to get you
dismissed by skinning you on demerits, but that you
circumvented that. Also that you and your friends have
made it hot for him ever since, upon which fact I
congratulate you.
"I don't know what the yearlings will do next, but I
imagine that they're 'stalled.' Since you've started,
I suppose the best thing for you to do is to keep up
the good work and not let them rest. But for Heaven's
sake, don't let any of them see this! They'd cut me
for aiding and abetting a plebe rebellion. You are
certainly the boldest plebe that every struck West
Point; nobody in our class ever dared to do what
you've done.
"It seems, though, that you have imitators, or else
that you are imitating somebody. Down here at
Annapolis this year pretty much the same state of
affairs is going on just now. There's a plebe down
here by the name of Clif Faraday (I've met him, and I
told him about you), and he's raising the very old boy
with the third class fellows. It seems that he
outwitted them in all their hazing schemes, and has
got them guessing at what he'll do next, which is
about as B. J. as anything you ever did, I imagine. It
looks as if plebes both at West Point and here would
get off with almost no hazing this year. And it's all
on account of you, too.
"Genius knows no precedent, they say. Farewell.
"Your friend,
"WICKS MERRITT.
"P. S.--They tell me you've saved the life of Judge
Fuller's daughter. Just take a word of advice--make
the most of your opportunity! She's the prettiest girl
around the place, and the nicest, too, and she has
half the corps wild over her. If you can make friends
with her, I think the yearlings would stop hazing you
at her command."
Mark finished the reading of the letter and gazed at his comrades,
smiling.
"You see," he said, "our fame has spread even to Annapolis. Gentlemen, I
propose three cheers for our crowd!"
"An' three fo' Clif Faraday!" cried Texas.
"Only don't give any of them," added Mark, "for somebody might hear us."
There was a moment's pause after that, broken by a protest from one of
the Seven, Joseph Smith, of Indianapolis, popularly known as "Indian,"
a fat, gullible youth, who was the laughingstock of the post.
"I tell you," said he, his round eyes swelling with indignation, "I
don't think what Clif Faraday did was a bit more B. J. than some of our
tricks!" (B. J. is West Point dialect for "fresh.")
"That's what I say, too, b'gee!" chimed in another, a handsome,
merry-eyed chap with a happy faculty of putting every one in a good
humor when he laughed. "Just look at how Mark shut two of 'em up in an
ice house. Or look at how, when they took Indian off to the observatory
to haze him, b'gee, we made 'em think the place was afire and had 'em
all scared to death, and the fire battalion turning out besides. Now,
b'gee, I want to know where you can beat that!"
And his sentiment was echoed with approval by the remainder of those
present. The seven had by this time scattered themselves about the tent
in picturesque and characteristic attitudes, listening to the discussion
carried on by the excitable Master Dewey.
First of all and foremost was the grave and learned "Parson," the Boston
geologist. The Parson was stretched on his back in one corner with
nothing but his long, bony shanks visible. Somehow or other Parson
Stanard always managed to keep those legs of his with their covering of
pale green socks the most conspicuous thing about him.
Sitting erect and stately on the locker, was Master Chauncey, the "dude"
of the party. A few weeks of West Point had already worked wonders with
Chauncey; his aristocratic friends on Fifth Avenue would scarcely have
known him. In the first place, he, with the rest of the plebes, were
compelled to walk, whenever they went abroad, with "head erect, chest
out, eyes to the front, little fingers on the seams of the trousers,
palms outward." Try this and you will find, as Chauncey was finding,
that it is hard to do that and at the same time keep up the correct
London "stoop." Chauncey had been obliged to leave his cane and monocle
behind him also, and a few days later, when plebe fatigue uniforms were
donned, his imported clothes and high collar went by the board, too.
But Chauncey still clung to his accent, "bah Jove;" and was still known
to the seven as "the man with a tutor and a hyphen"--his name being
Mount-Bonsall, if you please--and to the rest of the corps as the dude
who most did up six yearlings.
The corner opposite the Parson's contained the dozing figure of
Methusalem Zebediah Chelvers, the "farmer" from Kansas, popularly known
as "Sleepy."
Sleepy never did anything or said anything unless he had to; the seven
had known him for weeks now, and knew no more about him than at the
start. Sleepy was still sleepy, and that was all.
The other members of this bold and desperate secret "anti-hazing"
society were Dewey, the prize story-teller of the party, "b'gee;"
Indian, the "prize pig;" Texas, a wild and woolly cowboy just from the
plains, with a right arm that had paralyzed four cadets in as many
minutes, and, last of all, Mark Mallory, the leader.
"Just look at the things we've done, b'gee!" continued Dewey. "Look at
the times they've tried to haze us and we've outwitted them! See how we
had the nerve to yank 'em out of bed the other night, b'gee. Or, if that
isn't enough, just think of Bull Harris."
This last remark was greeted with a chuckle of laughter from the seven,
in which even Sleepy found sufficient energy to join. And, indeed, the
recollection was enough to make one laugh.
As readers of the first books in this series, "Off for West Point" and
"A Cadet's Honor," know, Bull Harris was the sworn enemy of the seven,
and of Mark in particular. He never had ceased plotting in his mean,
cowardly way to get Mark into trouble, and it was the joy of the plebes'
lives to outwit him. On the day previous they had succeeded beyond their
wildest dreams. Given a bloodhound that had been sent out from a
neighboring village to trail a burglar who had stepped into a barrel of
pitch, the seven had put pitch on Bull Harris' shoe and started the dog
after him during the evening's dress parade. The dog had chewed Bull's
trousers to ribbons, had broken up the parade, had made Bull the
laughingstock of the place and earned him the deathless nickname of
"Bull, the Burglar." Naturally, Bull was wild with rage, and the seven
with hilarity.
They were still chuckling over it and the general discomfiture of the
yearling class and their own future prospects as triumphant plebes, when
inspection put an end to the discussion and scattered the crowd.
"But just you keep in mind," was Dewey's parting declaration, "that
we're the B. J.-est plebes that ever were, are, will be or can be. And,
b'gee, we're going to show it every day, too!"
Which the Parson punctuated with a solemn "Yea, by Zeus!"