Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point Part 39

Once, two years before, Haynes had helped to put this punishment on a plebe, who had soon after quitted the Academy.

Then Haynes had thought that sending another to Coventry was, under some circ.u.mstances, a fine proceeding. But now the like fate had befallen him!

"The fellows don't really mean it. They're excited now, but to-morrow they'll be sorry and call the whole foolishness off," thought the "cut" man, trying hard to swallow the obstinate lump that rose in his throat.

In the quadrangle, mostly in groups, were fully two hundred cadets.

But not one of these young men would address a word to the exposed turnback.

"There's one satisfaction, anyway," thought Haynes savagely, as he walked blindly back toward the door of his own subdivision in barracks, "I can take it all out on the plebes!"

Just as he was going up the steps Haynes encountered a plebe coming out.

"Here, mister!" growled Haynes. "Swing around with you! At attention, sir! What's your name, mister?"

But the plebe did not even pause. He did not avert his head, but he took no pains to look at Haynes, merely pa.s.sing the turnback and gaining the quadrangle below.

Now the utter despair of his position came over Haynes. How suddenly it had come! And even Haynes, with his four years at West Point, could hardly realize how the Coventry had been p.r.o.nounced and carried out in so very few minutes after release from cavalry drill.

Tears of rage and humiliation in his eyes, Haynes stumbled to his room. Once inside he shunned the window, but stumbled to his chair at the study table, and sank down, his face buried in his arms.

"Oh, I'll make somebody suffer for this!" he growled.

Out in the quadrangle, now that the turnback was gone, the main theme of conversation was the discovery and exposure of the afternoon.

Pierson was requested to repeat his statement to a large group of first and second cla.s.smen.

"I don't believe a man could get a pin stuck into the toe of his boot accidentally, in the way that Haynes had his pin arranged,"

declared Brayton. "Has one of you fellows a pin to lend me?"

A pin being pa.s.sed, Brayton sat down on a convenient step and tried to adjust the pin between the sole and the upper of the toe of his boot.

"I can force it in a little way," admitted Brayton, "but see how the pin wobbles. It would fall out if I moved my foot hard.

Some of the rest of you try it."

Other cadets repeated the experiment.

"I'll tell you, fellows," said Spurlock at last; "a fellow couldn't accidentally get a pin in that position, and hold it firm there.

But I know that, after repeated trying, and working to fit the pin, I could finally get matters so that I could quickly fit a pin that would hold in place and be effective."

"Of course," nodded Lewis. "It can be done, but only by design."

"And that was the very way that Prescott's horse was enraged, so that old ramrod got his awful tumble!" exclaimed Greg bitterly.

"You believe, now, that the whole thing was a dirty, deliberate trick, don't you?" asked Spurlock of Prescott.

"I am pretty sure it must have been," nodded d.i.c.k.

"Then," declared Brayton, "the whole thing is something for you second cla.s.smen to settle among yourselves. In the first place, it is your own cla.s.s affair. In the next place, we men of the first cla.s.s are practically out of the Military Academy already.

It will do the first cla.s.s no good to take any action, because we shall not be here to carry out any decree."

"You can advise us, though," suggested Holmes.

"And we'll do so gladly," nodded Brayton. "Then do we need to hold a cla.s.s meeting, and vote to make the Coventry permanent?"

"Hardly, I should say," replied Brayton. "You've already started the cut, and it can be continued without any regular action---unless Haynes should have the cheek to try to brazen it out. If he does insist on staying here at the Military Academy, you can easily take up the matter during the summer encampment."

"It would seem rather strange for me to call a cla.s.s meeting, when the whole affair concerns me," suggested d.i.c.k.

"Oh, you don't need to call the meeting, old ramrod," advised Spurlock. "A self-appointed committee of the cla.s.s can call the meeting. You can open the meeting, of course, Prescott, and then you can call any other member of the cla.s.s to take the chair."

"I wonder if it will be necessary to drum the fellow out of the cla.s.s formally?" asked Anstey.

"Only time can show you that," replied Brayton. "Better just wait and see what action the fellow Haynes will take for himself. He may have the sense to resign."

Resign? That word was not in Haynes's own dictionary of conduct.

After his first few moments of despair, on gaining his room, the turnback had risen from his chair, his face showing a courage and resolution worthy of a better cause.

"Those idiots may think they have 'got' me," he muttered, shaking his fist toward the quadrangle. "One of these days they'll know me better! I'll make life miserable for some of those pups yet!"

Just before it was time for the call to dress parade Pierson came hurrying into the room to hasten into his full-dress uniform.

Haynes, already dressed with scrupulous care, looked curiously at his roommate. But Pierson did not appear to see him.

Haynes stepped over to the window, drumming listlessly on the sill. At length he turned around.

"Pierson," he asked, "have the fellows sent me to Coventry?"

"You don't need to ask that," replied the other coldly.

"Is it because of Prescott?"

"Yes. And now, will you stop bothering me with the sound of your voice?"

"Pierson, you know, when a fellow is cut by the corps, his roommate is not required to avoid conversation with the unlucky one."

"I know that," replied Pierson coldly. "But I've had all I want of you and from you. Except when it is absolutely necessary I shall not answer or address you hereafter."

"How long am I to stay in Coventry?"

Pierson acted as though he did not bear.

"Has formal action been taken, or is this just a flash of prejudice, Pierson?"

No answer.

"Humph!"

The call to form and march on to the parade ground was sounding.