Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point, H. Irving Hancock [nice books to read .txt] 📗

your own possession?"

"No, sir," replied Dodge with emphasis.

"Did you, knowingly, pass the handkerchief back to the accused cadet with any paper inside of it, or touching it in any way?"

"No, sir!"

Lieutenant Topham continued for some seconds to regard Mr. Dodge in silence. The witness began to lose some of his swagger. Then, abruptly, as though firing a pistol, Lieutenant Topham shot out the question:

"How about that smear of dirt on your hand, Mr. Dodge? How did it come to be on the back of your hand?"

If Mr. Topham had looked to this question to break the witness down he was doomed to disappointment.

"I do not know, sir," Dodge replied distinctly. "I am of the opinion, sir, that it must have come from the blacking on one of my shoes as I put it on before leaving my room."

There was no more to be gained from Dodge. He was excused. Now, Dick Prescott rose a was sworn, that he might testify in his own behalf. Yet he could do no more, under the military rules of evidence, than to deny any guilty knowledge of the slip of paper, and to repeat the handkerchief-loaning recital substantially as Dunstan had given it.

This closed the testimony. The president of the court announced that a recess of ten minutes would be taken, and that the room and gallery would be cleared of all except members of the court and the counsel for the accused.

As Dick turned to leave, he again turned his face toward the gallery. He saw his Gridley friends and looked bravely into their eyes, smiling. Then he caught sight of a veiled woman up there, who had risen, and was moving out. Dicks started; he could not help it, there was something so strangely familiar in that figure and carriage.

The cadet witnesses had already left, and we returning to barracks. Lieutenant Topham touched Prescott's arm and walked with him to the corridor.

"I shall do my best for you, you may be sure, Mr. Prescott," whispered the cavalry officer.

"May I ask, sir, what you think of the chances?

"Candidly, it looks to me like almost an even toss-up between conviction and acquittal."

Dick's face blanched. Then he turned, with starts The veiled woman was moving toward him with uncertain steps.

"Lieutenant Topham, I did not know my mother was to be present, but I am almost positive that is she."

Now, the veiled woman came a few steps nearer, looking appealingly at Dick.

"I am told, sir, that my son is in close arrest," she called, in a voice that thrilled the cadet. "But I am his mother. May I speak with him a moment?"

Mother and son were clasped in each other's arms for a moment. What they said matters little. Then Cadet Richard Prescott returned to his bleak room in barracks.

CHAPTER XVI A VERDICT AND A HOP

Then followed days full of suspense for many besides the accused cadet.

Prescott went mechanically at his studies, with a dogged determination to get high markings in everything.

Yet over mathematics more than anything, he pored. He fought out his problems in the section room grimly, bent on showing that he could win high marks without the aid of "cribs."

He was still in arrest, and must remain so until the finding of the court-martial—-whatever it was—-had been duly considered at Washington and returned with the President's indorsement. All this time Dick's mother and three faithful Gridley friends remained at the West Point Hotel. Dick could not go to them; they could not come to him, but notes might pass. Prescott received these epistles daily, and briefly but appreciatively answered them.

Then he went back furiously to his studies.

Grit could do him little good, except in his studies, if he were fated to remain at West Point. Grit could not help him in the settling of his fate. Either the court-martial had found him guilty, or had found him innocent, and all the courage in the world would not alter the verdict.

In the section room in mathematics, Captain Abbott did not show this cadet any disfavor or the opposite. The instructor's manner and tone with Prescott were the same as with all the other cadets.

When going to formations some of the cadets rather openly avoided Prescott. This cut like a knife. But evidently they believed him probably guilty, and they were entitled to their opinions. He must possess himself with patience for a few days; there was nothing else to do.

So the week rolled around again to Saturday. Now here were two afternoons when the young cadet might have gone to his mother and friends at the hotel, had he not been in arrest. There was to be a hop that night, but he could not "drag" the girl who had been so staunch and sweet.

On this Saturday, when he need not study much, Dick found himself in a dull rage with his helplessness. The day was bright, clear, cold and sunny, but the young cadet's soul was dark and moody. Would this suspense never end?

Dinner was to him merely another phase of duty. He had no real appetite; he would have preferred to sit brooding at his study table.

The meal over, the battalion marched back, halting, still in formation, at the north side of barracks near the sally-port.

The cadet captain in command of the battalion read some unimportant notices. Dick did not even hear them. He knew his fate was not to come to him through this channel.

While the reading was going on the Adjutant of the Military Academy came through the sally-port leisurely, as soon as he saw that the men were still in ranks.

Dick did not see the Adjutant, either. If he had, he might hardly have heeded the presence of that Army officer, the personal representative of the superintendent.

But, just as the cadet captain let fall the hand in which he had held the notices the adjutant called out crisply:

"Don't dismiss, Captain! Hold the companies!"

Between two of the companies stepped the adjutant, then walked to the front of center. Drawing, a paper from his overcoat, the adjutant began to read. It was a "special order."

Even to this Prescott listened only with unhearing ears—-at first.

Then, though he betrayed no more audible interest than did any of the other men in gray, Dick Prescott found his head swimming.

This special order referred to his own case. It was a report of the findings, these findings having been duly approved.

Cadet Richard Prescott's head began to whirl. The bright day seemed darkening before his dimmed vision, until he heard, unmistakably, the one word:

"Acquitted!"

What followed was a further order releasing him from arrest and restoring him to the usual cadet privileges.

"That is all, Captain," added the adjutant, folding the order and returning it to his overcoat. "Dismiss the companies when ready."

"Dismiss the companies!" came from the cadet battalion commander.

The separate commands of the various company commanders rang out.
Ranks were broken—-and friends in gray crowded about the yearling.

Then the corps yell was called for and given, with his name added. Some of the cadets slipped in through the sally-port, sooner than join in the demonstration.

"Thank you all—-it's jolly good of you!" cried Prescott huskily.

As soon as these comrades in arms would let him, he broke through and made for his room.

"Hooray!" yelled Greg, turning loose.

And Cadet Anstey thrust his head into the room long enough to add:

"Hooray!"

But Dick, half stripped above the waist, was at the washstand, making a thorough toilet, though a hurried one.

Greg waited, his eyes shining.

"It's mighty good of you all," cried Dick, as he was pulling on his cadet overcoat. "I wish I could stop and talk about it—-but there a duties that can't be hurried fast enough."

"Give my regards," called Holmes jovially after Prescott.

Crossing the barracks area, Dick strode into cadet guard-house, nimbly mounting the stairs to the second floor. Here he stood in the office of the O.C.

Saluting, he carefully phrased his request for leave to visit friends at the hotel.

This being granted, Dick went down the stairs at the greatest speed consistent with military dignity under the circumstances.

Out through the north sally-port and along the road running between officers' quarters and parade ground he hurried.

By the time he had walked to the hotel he had cooled off his first excitement somewhat.

He signed in the cadet register, then laid down his card.

"To Mrs. Prescott, please."

As ebony-visaged "front" vanished from the office, Dick turned and walked to the ladies' entrance, passing thence into the parlor.

Dick's mother was found at the dining table. So were her Gridley friends. All were finishing a light meal without appetite when the card was laid by Mrs. Prescott's plate.

"My boy, Dick—-here?" she cried brokenly rising as quickly as she could.

Mrs. Prescott passed quickly from the dining room, though her friends were close at her heels. So they all rushed in upon the solitary young cadet standing inside the parlor by a window.

As he heard them coming, Dick wheeled about. There was a tear in his eye, which deceived them.

Halting, a few feet away, these eager ones stared at him.

Dick tried to greet them in words, but he couldn't at first.

It was Laura who found her voice first.

"Dick! Tell us in a word!"

But Belle Meade gave Miss Bentley a somewhat vigorous push forward.

"Use your eyes, Laura!" rebuked Belle vigorously. "In the first place, Mr. Prescott is here. That means he's here by permission or right. In the second place, you ninny—-he still has the uniform on!"

"That's right," laughed Dick. "Yes, mother, and friends, the court-martial's finding was wholly favorable to me."

"Humph!" demanded Belle scornfully. "Why shouldn't it be? Wouldn't you expect thirteen old West Point graduates to know as much as four women from the country?"

Belle's hearty nonsense put an end to all tension.

Mrs. Prescott met and embraced her son. The others crowded about, offering congratulations.

That night Dick and Greg "dragged" the Gridley girls to the cadet hop at Cullum, and Anstey was a favored one on the hop cards of both girls. Mrs. Prescott and Mrs. Bentley looked on from the gallery.

"It's the jolliest hop I've been to," declared Dick with enthusiasm.

"Humph!" muttered Holmes. "Of course it is. You old boner, you've never been but to three hops!

"I understand," teased Belle, "that you're much more of a veteran,
Mr. Holmes, than your chum is."

Cadet Dodge "missed" that hop.

CHAPTER XVII "A LIAR AND A COWARD"

Long, indeed, did the memory of that hop linger with Cadet Dick
Prescott.

It had come as the fitting, cheering ending of his great trouble—-the hardest trouble that had assailed him, or could assail him, at the United States Military Academy.

"Well, you've been vindicated, anyway," muttered Greg cheerily, one day. "So you needn't look as thoughtful as you do half of the time these present days."

"Have I been vindicated, Greg?" asked Dick gravely.

"What did the court say? And you're still wearing the uniform that Uncle Sam gave you, aren't you?

"Vindication, Greg, means something more that a court-martial verdict of acquittal."

"What more do you want?"

"Greg, the verdicts of all the courts-martial sitting between here and Manila wouldn't make some of the men of this corps believe that I innocent."

"G'wan!" retorted Cadet Holmes impatiently.

"I see it, Greg, old chum, if you don't."

"You're morbid, old ramrod!"

"Greg, you know the cheery greeting, in passing, that one man here often gives another when he likes and trusts that man. Well, some of own classmates that used to give me the glad hail seem to be thinking about something else, now, when they pass me."

"Who are they?" demanded Greg, his fists doubling.

"You'd provoke a fight, if I told you," retorted Dick. "This isn't a matter to fight about."

"Then you don't know much about fighting subjects," grumbled Cadet Holmes, as he leaned back and opened his book of everlasting mathematics.

"Let me see, Greg; have you any show to get out of the goats