Captain Jinks, Hero, Ernest Howard Crosby [free e books to read TXT] 📗

made some desperate lunges at Starkie. It was easy to see in a moment that Sam could do nothing. He could not even reach his opponent, his arms were so much shorter. If Starkie held one of his arms out stiffly, Sam could not get near him and was entirely at his mercy. The third-class man consequently set himself leisurely to work at the task of punishing the unfortunate Jinks. Two or three blows about the face and jaw which started the blood in profusion ended the first round. Sam did not recognize the inevitable result of the fight, and was anxious to begin again. He did not seem to feel any pain from the blows. Two or three rounds had the same result, and Sam became weaker and weaker. At last he could only go into the ring and receive punishment without making an effort to avert it, but he did not flinch.

“Did you ever see such a chap?” said Smith to Saunders. “Let’s call the thing off.”

“Nonsense,” said the latter. “Wait till he’s knocked insensible”; and the rest of the spectators expressed their agreement with him.

Just then a sound of marching was heard, and a company of cadets were seen coming up the hill in command of an army officer.

“Hullo, Clark,” whispered Smith. “Stop the fight. Here comes old Blair, and he may report us.”

“Not much,” said Clark. “He’ll mind his own business.”

The company approached within a few yards of the ring.

“Eyes right!” shouted Captain Blair, and every man in the company turned his eyes away from the assembled crowd, and Blair himself stared into the woods on the other side of the path. The company had almost passed out of sight when Blair’s voice was heard again.

“Front!” and the danger of detection had blown over.

After this faint interruption, Sam was brought up once more, pale and bloody, and hardly able to stand. Yet he smiled through the blood. Starkie stood off and gave him his coup de grace, a full blow in the solar plexus, which doubled him up quite unconscious on the ground. Clark declared the fight finished, and the crowd broke up hastily, leaving Cleary and his associate to get Sam away as best they could. They had a pail of water, sponges and towels, and they bathed his face; and after half an hour’s work were rewarded by having him open his eyes. In another half-hour he was able to stand, and supporting him on each side, they led him slowly down to the hospital.

“What’s the matter?” said the doctor as they entered the office. “Oh! I see. You found him lying bleeding up by Fort Hut, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Cleary.

“He must have fallen down and hit his head against a stone, don’t you think so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s a dangerous place; the pine-needles make it very slippery,” said the doctor, as he entered the case in his records. “Here, Mose, put Cadet Jinks to bed.”

This time Sam was laid up for two weeks, but he felt amply repaid for this loss of time by a visit from no less a person than Cadet Smith.

“Mind you never tell anyone I came here,” said Smith, “and treat me just the same when you come out as you did before; but I wanted to tell you you’re a brick. I never saw a man stand up to a dressing the way you did, and that’s the truth.”

Tears of joy rolled down Sam’s damaged face.

“I’ve brought you those photographs of the hazing, too,” said Smith with a laugh. And he produced two small prints from his pocket. Sam took them with trembling hands and gazed at them with rapture. One of them represented Cleary and Jinks tied to the stake, apparently about to be burned to death, and Sam was delighted to see the ultra-perfect position which he had assumed. The other photograph had been taken the moment after Sam’s immersion in the tub. He could see his hands clutching the rim, while his legs were widely separated in the air.

“It might be General Meriden as well as me,” he cried joyously. “Nobody could tell the difference.”

“That’s so,” said Smith.

“I shall always carry them next my heart,” said Sam. “How can I thank you enough? I am sorry that I can’t black your boots this week.”

“Oh! never mind,” said Smith magnanimously, looking down at his feet. “Cleary does them pretty well. You’ll be out before long.”

When Sam was discharged from the hospital the cadet corps had struck camp and gone into barracks for the year. The summer maidens, too, had fled, and East Point soon settled down to the monotony of winter work. Every cadet looked forward already to the next summer: the first class to graduation; the second to the glories of first-class supremacy in camp and ballroom; the third class to their two months’ furlough as second-class men; but the fourth class had happier anticipations than any of the rest, for they were to be transformed in June from “beasts” into men, into real third-class cadets, with all the rights and privileges of human beings. Sam’s dream was also irradiated with the hope of winning the affections of the fair Miss Hunter, to whom he had never addressed a word, but of whose interest he felt assured. He did not know where the assurance came from, but he had little fear of Saunders now. Next summer Saunders would be away on leave, anyhow. Sam knew, if no one else did, that he had actually fought for the hand of Miss Hunter; and, though he had been defeated, had not Smith admitted that his defeat was a practical victory? He felt that he had won Miss Hunter’s hand in mortal combat, and he dismissed from his mind all doubt on the subject.

IV War and Business

Marian Hunter was, as we have already surmised, a lady of experience. She was possessed, as is not uncommonly the case with young ladies at East Point,