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Dick Prescott's Fourth Year at West Point, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 14. The Story Carried On The Wind |
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_ CHAPTER XIV. THE STORY CARRIED ON THE WIND "Oh, I fixed it all right," insisted Jordan confidently. 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 coarsely. "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 class 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 class 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 class 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 Dick's hand with his own. Douglass saw. After a bare instant's hesitation the class president also took Prescott's hand, giving it a mighty squeeze. In the joy of that friendly grasp from his own classmen, Dick Prescott almost felt that all the bitterness of the last few months had been wiped out in a second. Then Douglass 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. "Hello! What are you fellows doing here?" demanded the money lender, with blustering indignation. "I might ask that question of you, fellow, but I won't, for I already know," replied Cadet Douglass, 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 class 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 Douglass, 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 Douglass coldly. "Oh, now see here, there are ways and ways," spoke Henckley in a wheedling tone. "Let's all be friendly." Before Douglass could guess what was happening the money shark had pressed a hand against the cadet's. With an impatient gesture Douglass shook his own hand free. But something like paper remained in his palm. Douglass held up that hand, and discovered that it held a banknote that Henckley had slipped into Douglass' hand as a bribe. Cadet Douglass calmly tore that banknote in bits and flung it off on the breeze. The fragments were out of sight in an instant. Then Douglass coolly knocked the money shark down. "Come along, fellows," spoke the class president quietly, and turned on his heel. "Confound you, Mr. Fresh, I'll report this to the superintendent," bellowed Henckley. "Do!" called Douglass in cool contempt over his shoulder. Douglass, Durville and Prescott tramped together around to the front of Cullum Hall. There Douglass again paused to hold out his hand, remarking: "Mr. Prescott, the class 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 class 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, Dick 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 Douglass 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-----" "Out of the cadet corps?" screamed Henckley. "Then what becomes of what you owe me?" "That's something you'll have to settle to your own satisfaction," jeered the dismayed cadet. "I can offer you no help." Jordan turned on his heel, starting to walk away, when Mr. Henckley leaped after him, seizing him by the arm. "See here-----" began the money shark hoarsely. "Let go of my arm," warned Jordan in a rage, "or I'll hit you harder than Douglass did." As the money lender shrank back out of Jordan's reach, the cadet strode off swiftly. Mr. Jordan was in his bed when the subdivision inspector went through the rooms that night. At morning roll call, however, Jordan did not answer. An investigation showed that he had gone. All his uniforms and other equipment he had left behind, from which it was judged that Jordan had, in some way, managed to get hold of an outfit of civilian attire. Jordan had deserted, with a heart full of hate for Dick Prescott, with whom the deserter swore to be "even" before the academic year was out. _ |
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