Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point Part 24

He was speaking in a rather low tone, but the breeze carried every word to the ears of the listeners.

"You're talking just to hear yourself talking," sneered the stranger coa.r.s.ely.

"No; I'm not, Henckley," retorted the cadet.

"What was the trick, then?"

"Don't you wish you knew?" laughed Jordan.

"I don't care much," replied the stranger named Henckley. "But I can't just picture you as doing anything extremely clever.

Even if it was luck, as you say, I can't figure how you were smart enough to know how to profit by it. That's why I'm just a bit curious, but no more."

"Why, you see, it happened this way," went on Jordan. "I saw Prescott, that night back into camp, going into the tent of the O.C. I thought that perhaps Prescott was going there in order to say more about the matter that he had reported me for that forenoon. So I moved close and listened. It seemed that some of the plebes had been running the guard nights. Lieutenant Denton asked the fellow Prescott, who is a cadet captain, to keep a watch and stop plebes before they had a chance to get on the other side of the guard line.

"Well, I knew the point at which plebes were in the habit of getting past the guard line, and so did Prescott, I guess. So, a little after taps, I slipped outside the guard near where I judged Prescott would be watching. Then, after I had heard him speak with the cadet sentry I presently stooped low in the bushes and lit a cigar.

Then I stood up straight and the glowing end of the cigar showed from where Prescott stood. He did just what a fellow like him feels bound to do, and what I knew he'd do. He hailed me. I acted as though I wanted to get away, then allowed myself to be overhauled. I was reported, of course, and made to pay the penalty.

But I was able to make the other fellows in the cla.s.s believe that Prescott had trailed me, on purpose to rub it into me. That looked like over zeal, backed by a grudge, and the first cla.s.s swallowed it in fine shape. They gave him the silence, but had not made it permanent Coventry. Then he caught another man, named Durville, for going off the post in 'cit.' clothes, and that settled the case against that fellow Prescott. But it was my trick that made all the rest possible."

"I don't see that that was anything very clever," rejoined Henckley.

"I told you, didn't I," argued Jordan, "that it was as much luck as cleverness."

"What part of it was clever, anyway?" jeered Henckley.

"Why, putting the whole game through, and making the cla.s.s take it up, yet doing it all so that the trick could never be traced back to me," replied Jordan.

In the shadow, Durville turned briskly, gripping d.i.c.k's hand with his own.

Dougla.s.s saw. After a bare instant's hesitation the cla.s.s president also took Prescott's hand, giving it a mighty squeeze.

In the joy of that friendly grasp from his own cla.s.smen, d.i.c.k Prescott almost felt that all the bitterness of the last few months had been wiped out in a second.

Then Dougla.s.s stepped out from the shadow, his face stern and set.

"Perhaps you will want to stop talking, Mr. Jordan," he called.

"Your conversation has not been a private one!"

With the strong wind blowing away from Jordan, that cadet heard only a rumble of voices. Both he and Henckley, however, caught sight of the advancing figures.

"h.e.l.lo! What are you fellows doing here?" demanded the money lender, with bl.u.s.tering indignation.

"I might ask that question of you, fellow, but I won't, for I already know," replied Cadet Dougla.s.s, fixing his eyes on the stranger.

"You've been listening to our talk?" demanded Henckley angrily, while Jordan, after his first gasp of dismay, seemed to shrivel back against the wall of Cullum Hall.

"Mr. Jordan," continued the cla.s.s president, facing the dismayed one in gray uniform, "I don't believe the significance of this meeting has escaped you?"

"No-o-o," wailed Jordan in misery.

"Now, see here, young fellows, don't you go and blab what you've been spying on just now," remonstrated Mr. Henckley, a note of dismay creeping into his tone.

"It can hardly concern you, sir," flashed Cadet Dougla.s.s, wheeling upon the money shark. "Yet I suppose it does, too. For now I do not see how Mr. Jordan can hope to remain at the Military Academy.

That, I suppose, may possibly affect your security for the money which, I take it, Mr. Jordan has borrowed from you."

"But you won't blab, and have him kicked out?" coaxed Mr. Henckley, his voice now wholly wheedling.

"What the cadets may see fit to do for their own protection is hardly a matter that can be discussed with you, sir," returned Dougla.s.s coldly.

"Oh, now see here, there are ways and ways," spoke Henckley in a wheedling tone. "Let's all be friendly."

Before Dougla.s.s could guess what was happening the money shark had pressed a hand against the cadet's. With an impatient gesture Dougla.s.s shook his own hand free. But something like paper remained in his palm. Dougla.s.s held up that hand, and discovered that it held a banknote that Henckley had slipped into Dougla.s.s' hand as a bribe.

Cadet Dougla.s.s calmly tore that banknote in bits and flung it off on the breeze. The fragments were out of sight in an instant.

Then Dougla.s.s coolly knocked the money shark down.

"Come along, fellows," spoke the cla.s.s president quietly, and turned on his heel.

"Confound you, Mr. Fresh, I'll report this to the superintendent,"

bellowed Henckley.

"Do!" called Dougla.s.s in cool contempt over his shoulder.

Dougla.s.s, Durville and Prescott tramped together around to the front of Cullum Hall.

There Dougla.s.s again paused to hold out his hand, remarking:

"Mr. Prescott, the cla.s.s meeting is not to be held until Monday evening. All I am privileged to say is that I think what we have overheard tonight will very materially affect the cla.s.s action.

I am very grateful to you, my dear sir, for having called us."

Durville, too, held out his hand in sign that the past grudge was forgotten so far as he was concerned.

Full of a new happiness, d.i.c.k trudged back to cadet barracks.

Finding Greg Holmes in, Prescott imparted the wonderful news.

Greg leaped up delightedly, pumphandling his chum's arm and patting him on the back.

"Come out all right?" sputtered Holmes. "Of course it will, and I always knew it would."

Meanwhile Cadet Jordan was surveying Henckley with a look of mingled rage, disgust and consternation.

"Now, you've gone and done it, you bull-necked, toad-brained idiot!"

cried the elegant Mr. Jordan.

"Why didn't you pay up like a man, and this would never have happened,"

growled Henckley, rubbing the spot where Dougla.s.s had struck him.

"Pay up like a man?" sneered Jordan. "Well, this affair has one small, good side to it. You've got me run out of the cadet corps, but-----"