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

you, old ramrod!" cried Greg fervently.

"Not a shadow of a debt, Greg. You'd have done just the same thing for me."

"Yes, if I could have been quick enough to think of it. But I probably wouldn't have figured it out as swiftly as you did."

"Yes, you would," Dick retorted grimly, "for it was the only way.
What's that bulging out the front of your coat, Greg?"

"The cord," Greg confessed, with a sheepish grin.

"Better get rid of it right where you are. Even a fishline is rope enough to hang a cadet when he gets into trouble too close to the reveille gun."

Greg had barely tossed away the coil of cord when——-

Bang! bang! bang!

Bang! bang! BANG!

The fusillade ripped out within a hundred yards of where they now stood.

Dick and Greg halted in amazement. They did not start, or jump, for the soldier habit was too firmly fixed with them. But they were astounded.

As they stood there, staring, more explosions ripped out on the night air, over by Battle Monument.

Cadets Prescott and Holmes could see the flashes, also, close down near the ground, as though an infantry firing squad were lying prostrate and firing at will.

Bang! bang! bang! The fusillade continued.

Behind the two cadets sounded running footsteps.

"Hadn't we better duck?" demanded Greg.

"No; it would look bad. We had no hand in this, and we can stick to our word."

Over at camp, orders were ringing out. Though the two cadets near Battle Monument heard indistinctly, they knew it was the call for the cadet guard.

Now the nearest runner passed them. It was Captain Bates, on a dead run, and, as Bates was not much past thirty, and an athlete, he was getting over the ground fast.

As he passed, Bates, without slackening speed, took Dick and Greg in with one swift glance.

Back in Gridley Dick and Greg certainly would have dashed onward to the scene of the excitement. As young soldiers, they knew better. Their presence over by Battle Monument had not been officially requested. Yet, as it was not time for taps, the cadets could and did stand where they were.

Two different armed forces were now moving swiftly forward to reinforce the O.C., as the officer in charge is termed.

Two policemen of the quartermaster's department—-enlisted men of the Army, armed on with revolvers in holsters—-ran over from the neighborhood of the nearest officers' quarters.

Cadet Corporal Haynes and the relief of the guard, moving at double quick, passed Dick and Greg on the path.

"Some fellows touched off firecrackers," whispered Greg to his chum.

"Number one cannon crackers," guessed Prescott.

They could see Captain Bates take a dark lantern from one of the quartermaster's police detail, and scan the ground closely all around where the cannon crackers had been discharged.

"Nothing more doing," muttered yearling Prescott. "We may as well be going back to camp, Greg. But we'll lose a heap of that six hours and a half of sleep tonight."

"Think so?" demanded Holmes moodily.

"Know it. The tac. saw us twice on this path, and he has us marked. The O.C. and the K.C. (commandant of cadets) will hold their own kind of court of inquiry tonight, and you and I are going to be grilled brown."

"We didn't set the cannon crackers off; we didn't see anyone around the monument, and we don't know anything about it."

"All true," nodded Dick. "But we'll have to say it in all the different styles of good English that we can think of."

Dick and Greg reached the encampment, and passed inside the limits, just before they heard the guard marching back.

Then all was ominously quiet over at the tent of the O.C., Captain
Bates.

Tattoo had gone some time ago. Now the alarm clock told the bunkies that they had just three minutes in which to get undressed and be in bed before taps sounded on the drum.

"It's a shame, too," muttered Dick in an undertone. "We won't be any more than on the blanket before the summons from the O.C. will arrive."

"Here it comes, now," whispered Greg, nudging his bunkie.

But it was Anstey, their tentmate, hastening to be undressed in time against taps.

"What was the row?" asked the Virginian.

"Cannon crackers over at Battle Monument," replied Dick. "We were over there at the time."

"You were?" asked Anstey quietly, but shooting at them a look of amused suspicion.

So many cadets were now seeking their tents that our three bunkies did not notice that one footstep ceased before their door, for a moment, then passed on.

The man outside was Bert Dodge, also of the Dodge was a former Gridley High School boy and a bitter enemy of Dick's. The origin of that enmity was thoroughly told in the High School Boys Series.

During the plebe year Dodge, who was a fellow of little honor or principle had done his best to involve Prescott in serious trouble with the Military Academy authorities, but had failed. Dodge, however, had succeeded in escaping detection, and had succeeded in passing on from the plebe to the yearling class.

Anstey, however, who had been Dodge's roommate in the plebe year, was firmly resolved that he would not be roommate to Dodge when they returned to cadet barracks the next year.

Dodge hated all three of the bunkies in this tent, but Dick Prescott he hated more than the other two combined.

"Yes; we were near the spot," Dick said, answering Anstey's question. "But we didn't set off the crackers, or have anything to do with the matter. We don't even know, or have a guess, as to who the offenders were."

Though Dodge knew, in his soul, that he could believe Prescott, it was with an evil smile that Bert now hastened on, gaining his own tent.

Taps sounded, and fifteen minutes more went by. It began to look as though the Battle Monument affair would be allowed to go by until morning. Greg was asleep, and Dick was just dozing off, when there came a sharp step in the company street. The step had an official sound to it. That step halted, suddenly, before the door of the tent of our three bunkies.

"By order of the commandant of cadets," sounded the voice of Cadet Corporal Haynes. "Mr. Prescott and Mr. Holmes will turn out with all due speed, and report at the office of the officer in charge."

"Yes, sir," acknowledged Prescott, and nudged drowsy, half-awake
Greg.

"Yes, sir," replied Holmes.

Dick leaped up, lighting the candle. Then he gave a slight kick that was enough to bring Holmes apart from his blanket.

Hastily, though with soldierly neatness, the two yearlings dressed themselves, then stepped out into the night, prepared to face the rapid-fire gun of official curiosity.

CHAPTER V "I RESPECTFULLY DECLINE TO ANSWER, SIR."

"Mr. Prescott reports, sir."

"Mr. Holmes reports, sir."

Saluting, the two yearlings stepped into the tent of the O.C., then halted at attention.

Two officers returned their salutes. Captain Bates sat at his desk. Lieutenant Colonel Strong, commandant of cadets, sat back in lower chair at the right of Captain Bates's desk.

"Mr. Prescott," began Captain Bates, transfixing the yearling with his burning eyes, "you and Mr. Holmes were close to Battle Monument when the firecrackers were discharged there this evening.

"Yes, sir," Dick admitted.

"What do you know about the affair?"

"Only this, sir: That, after passing you, we walked along the same path until we turned in not far from the monument. We were walking toward it when we heard the discharges, and saw the flashes."

"Had you been nearer to the monument at any time through the evening,
Mr. Prescott?"

"No, sir."

Dick answered with great promptness.

"Mr. Prescott, have you sufficiently considered my question and your reply?"

"Yes, sir."

"I will put a question of another kind. Did you see, do you know, or have you any knowledge of any kind, of those who placed the firecrackers by the monument, or who set them off?"

"Absolutely no knowledge, sir, on any point you mention," Dick rejoined promptly.

"Did you have any knowledge that such a breach of discipline was being planned."

"I did not, sir."

"Mr. Prescott!"

It was Colonel Strong who spoke. Dick wheeled about, saluted, then stood at attention.

"A serious offence against military discipline has been committed at Battle Monument tonight. Have you any knowledge about the matter which, if in our possession, would aid in any way in clearing up the mystery surrounding this offence?

"I have absolutely no knowledge of any form, sir, except that, as I stated, while Mr. Holmes and I were walking toward the monument, we heard the reports and saw the flashes."

"You realize the full import of your statement, Mr. Prescott?" pressed the K.C.

"I do, sir."

"Then, on your honor as a cadet and a gentleman, you declare that your statement is true?"

"I do, sir," Cadet Prescott replied.

The pledge he had just given is the most solemn that is exacted of a United States military cadet. Usually, the cadet's plain word is accepted as ample, for the sense of faith and honor is paramount at West Point. A cadet detected in a lie would be forced out of the cadet corps by the ostracism of his own comrades.

"That is all, for the present, Mr. Prescott."

Dick respectfully saluted the K.C., then the O.C., next wheeled and marched out of the tent, going straight to his own tent. Prescott would gladly have remained, but he had been dismissed.

It was twenty minutes later when Greg crept back into the tent and began to undress.

"How about it?" whispered Prescott.

"I was asked more questions, but all of the same import," Holmes answered in a whisper.

"Did the O.C. make you tell on yourself, about being over by the reveille gun?"

"No; I thought some of his questions led that way, but my other answers stopped him in that line. As a last resort I would respectfully have declined to say anything to incriminate myself."

As was afterwards learned, Dick and Greg were the only witnesses examined that night. Captain Bates had followed the only trail at which he could guess, and had learned nothing.

* * * * * * * *

"Mr. Prescott and Mr. Holmes both have the usual excellent reputation of cadets for truthfulness, haven't they, Captain?" asked Colonel Strong.

"Yes, Colonel."

"Then I am afraid we shall get no further in this investigation."

"Unless, sir, my questions were so badly put as to give them a chance of shielding themselves without giving untruthful answers. I shall sleep on this matter tonight, Colonel. I don't want these young men to think they can put such an easy one right over my head."

"I wish you luck, Bates. But I'm afraid you've shot off your only round of ammunition, and have found it a blank charge. Good night."

"Good night, sir."

"Mr. Prescott was clever enough to prevent my pouncing on Mr. Holmes at the reveille gun tonight," mused the O.C. "I can hardly suspect Mr. Prescott of untruthfulness, but I wonder whether he has been clever enough to baffle me in this monument affair, without telling an absolute untruth?"

For nearly a half an hour the O.C. lay awake, reviewing the method he had followed in questioning Cadet Prescott.

In the morning, after breakfast, there were a few minutes of leisure in camp before the squads or platoons marched away for the first drills.

"You were on the grill, last night, old ramrod?" asked Furlong, in a chuckling whisper.

"Yes," Dick nodded.

"You couldn't tell anything?"

"I knew less than nothing to tell."

"You didn't see us, last night, as we slipped away from the monu——-"

"Shut up, you sun-scorched idiot!" cried Prescott sharply, under his breath. "I don't want to know anything about it now."

"Oh, that's all right, I suppose," said Mr. Furlong, looking furtively towards Bert Dodge, who was standing some distance off.

The very thought that he was now practically certain, morally, at least, who one of the perpetrators of the monument affair was, made Dick uneasy. He