Loe raamatut: «Cadet Days. A Story of West Point»

CHAPTER I

"Pops, there's no use talking; we've simply got to send you to the Point."

"I'm sure I wish you could, Colonel. Father's tried every way he could think of, but cadetships don't go a-begging – out here, at least. The President has only one or two 'at large' appointments this year, and there were over a thousand applications for them."

"Well, have you tried Mr. Pierce, the Congressman for this district?"

"Oh, yes, sir, tried him long ago. He was very polite – Congressmen always are. He asked me to go round and get all the signatures to my application I possibly could, and kept me running for six weeks or so. Then he gave it to Mr. Breifogle's son."

Colonel Belknap smiled. "Yes, I remember hearing," said he, reflectively, tapping his spurred boot-heel with his riding-switch and critically eying the sturdy young fellow who stood respectfully before him. George Graham, the post surgeon's eldest son, was just seventeen, of medium height, wiry and athletic in build, with deep chest and broad shoulders, with close-curling brown hair, with big, frank, steady blue eyes, and a complexion that was probably fair enough in his baby days, but now was so tanned by sun and wind that the down just sprouting on his cheeks and upper lip seemed almost white by contrast. A picture of boyish health, strength, and activity was "Geordie," as his mother ever called him in vain protest against the familiar "Pops" by which he was generally hailed – a pet name given him by the officers when he was but a "four-year-old," far out in Arizona – a boy who had been reared in the West, whose first playmate was a wild little Apache, whose earliest friends were the rough troopers at an isolated station; a boy who had been taught to hunt and trail and shoot the Indian arrow before he was nine; who had ridden "pony-back" across the continent from Arizona to Kansas with a cavalry column before he was ten; who had stalked an antelope along the Smoky Hill before he was twelve; who had shot a black bear in the Yellowstone Mountains when he was only fifteen; and raced a buffalo bull into the fords of Milk River within sight of the British possessions across latitude 49 within the following year. He had met and mingled with Indians of many a tribe. He had picked up something of the Apache tongue from his playmate Dick; had visited the Navajo Reservation, near old Fort Defiance, in New Mexico, and brought away as his very own one of their wonderful woven blankets. He had learned not a little of the sign-language, and so was able to communicate and make himself understood among even the Cheyenne urchins around Fort Supply. After that his father had been stationed just long enough at Niobrara to enable Geordie to feel quite at home among the Ogallala and Brulé Sioux, whose reservations were just across the Dakota line, and whose visits to the post were frequent. Then the doctor was ordered far up to Fort Assiniboine, where Pops expected to freeze, but found the summer days as hot as they were in Arizona, and the mosquitoes worse than they were at Supply. There he studied the Northern Indians, and came to the conclusion that the Blackfeet and Gros-Ventres could not be compared favorably with the lithe and sinewy and marvellously active Indians of Arizona. Geordie swore by the Apaches. There were no trailers like the Tontos; no bowmen or ball-players like the Hualpais. The Sioux and Cheyennes could ride, perhaps, but all the Sioux in Dakota could not whip Eskeldetsee's band "if you put 'em in the mountains" – which was probably true. And so by the time he was seventeen Geordie had ridden, marched, or travelled by ambulance, stage, or rail through most of the great Western States and Territories; but from the time he was four years old he had never been east of Omaha, or set foot in the streets of a bigger town than Cheyenne.

Nor had he ever regularly attended any school. There were no schools to speak of near any of the garrisons at which his father was stationed; but Dr. Graham was a man of scholarly tastes, a graduate of a famous university in Scotland, and one who by faithful study kept abreast of the leading minds in his profession. People generally led a very healthful open-air life on the broad Western frontier, and Dr. Graham had few patients to claim his time. He planned, therefore, all the studies for his two boys, he himself hearing them recite in history, geography, and arithmetic, while their devoted mother, at whose knee they had successively learned their A B C's, and whose fragile white hand had guided their chubby fists in the tracing of their first pot-hooks, was their instructor in the other rudiments.

Regularly, five mornings a week, the little fellows were set at their books right after guard-mounting, and, with brief intermission, worked until the bugles sounded "orderly call," or the drums and fifes merrily played "Roast Beef of Old England" at noon. No wonder they learned to welcome that call. Then they had their frugal luncheon. The doctor was a stanch Scotchman, who believed that boyish brawn and brain throve better on "parritch" and milk than on any other pabulum. Think of boys who never knew the taste of candy until after they were twelve – to whom hot biscuit was forbidden, and tea and coffee tabooed! They grew up ruddy-cheeked, freckle-faced, clear-eyed, sturdy-limbed, burly young "Hielanders," with marvellous capacity for solid food, sound sleep, and active sports. They were better taught than most of the other children around the garrisons, for what they knew they knew well. The three years' difference in their ages gave "Pops," of course, too much advantage in their boyish tiffs and scuffles; for boys will romp and wrestle, just as puppies play and kittens frolic, and these, starting in fun, close sometimes in fury; but they forget the feud as quickly as it was begun. Pops learned at an early age the lesson of self-restraint, the law of forbearance towards the younger and weaker brother. It was not learned intuitively, perhaps, but rather the reverse. The doctor was of a famous old Scotch Presbyterian clan, with a wholesome faith in Calvin and the doctrine of original sin. His gentle wife had thought to convert her eldest hope by appeals to his finer nature, but the doctor held that there was just so much of the "thrawn deevil" in every boy that had to be trounced out of him. It was all very well for Pops to tussle with his Apache playmate, and come home covered with dirt and bumps and glory, and explosive with tremendous tales of his personal valor – Pops would brag when he was young, and many another boy would have done the same under like conditions – but he was too big and strong for "Buddie;" and so when Bud came roaring in one day to tell how "Pops fwowed me down and hit me," Pops owned up that it was true. Bud would meddle with what he and Dick were trying to make, and he "just pushed him away." Mamma gravely admonished; but papa gave warning. It happened again before very long, and this time the doctor took Pops into his den, and presently poor Mrs. Graham ran to the dining-room and covered her ears, and Buddie howled in sudden revulsion of feeling. The doctor seldom punished, but what his right hand found to do he did with all his might.

"I want you to remember this, George," said he, half an hour later, "a manly boy must be merciful. It isn't enough that you should make allowances for Buddie's blunders, you must be lenient to his faults. When he is older he will be wiser. Meantime, the blows you strike must be for, not against him."

He needn't have said that. Pops was far readier to fight for his younger brother than he was to worry him in the least, and he took his flogging sorely to heart. He was only ten at the time. Bud had tried him severely. He had begged the little fellow to desist, and finally, losing all patience, had violated orders and thumped him – not very hard, perhaps, but still hard enough to warrant half at least of the pitiful tale the smaller boy ran to tell at once and at home. Geordie felt very much aggrieved at Bud when sent forth finally to go to his room and meditate on his sins and nurse his many sore spots; but when he saw the misery in the little fellow's face, when Bud, with fresh outburst of tears, threw himself into his brother's arms, clung to him sobbing, and could not say for the very violence of his grief how he hated himself for telling, the reconciliation was complete, and the three – mother and boys – stole away up-stairs and had a hug and cry together all by themselves, and came down again an hour later much happier after all, and quite ready to make it up with papa. But the doctor wasn't there. He had slipped out, despite the fact of its being his study hour, and was found at tea-time miserably promenading the bank of the stream half a mile from the post, and quite unconscious that the evening gun had fired. He never whipped Pops again; indeed, the boy gave him no cause to; and he never thrashed Buddie, even when that unrepentant little sinner well deserved it. He even declined to reprimand Pops at the excited appeal of Mrs. Captain Vaughan, whose twelve-year-old son came home from the swimming-pool, five days after, with a battered countenance, and a complaint that he had been beaten without cause by Pops Graham. Investigation of the case resulted in the fact that young Vaughan was trying to duck Buddie, when the latter's big brother happened upon the scene. Between the doctor and his boys there grew up a sort of tacit understanding, a firmly grounded trust and affection, that seldom found vent in caress of any kind, and was rarely apparent in word. George shot up from sturdy boyhood into athletic youth with thorough faith in his father, who, he believed, was the best friend he had or could expect to have. With all his heart he honored him, and with all his soul he loved his mother.

And now they were stationed at Fort Reynolds, with a thriving Western mining metropolis just six miles away to the east, with hunting and fishing in the lofty mountains to the west, and a great tumbling sea of grassy prairie stretching away to the east and south. Geordie's pony had been turned over to Bud long months ago, for the bigger boy could back and ride and control the liveliest bucker among all the bronchos in the cavalry stables. Officers and troopers alike declared that Pops was cut out for the cavalry. He loved a horse. He had broken and trained his last possession, a "cayuse" colt from the herd of old Two Moons, chief of the northern Cheyennes. He had ridden and hunted by himself, or with a single trooper for a companion, all through the mountains that frowned across the western sky, rarely coming home without an abundant supply of venison or bear meat, and still faithfully kept up his studies, hoping that by some good-fortune he might succeed in getting an appointment to the great Military Academy of the nation – hoping almost against hope, yet never desponding. At last it came, and this was the way of it.

Just as the wintry winds began to blow, and the soldiers, turning out for roll-call at the break of day, began to note how the mountains seemed to be wearing their fleecy nightcaps farther down about their ears until the bald peaks were covered with a glistening, spotless helmet, and the dark fringes of pine and fir down among the gorges and foot-hills looked all the blacker by contrast, there came a fresh battalion of cavalry marching into the post to relieve the – th just ordered away, and Pops had sadly bidden adieu to the departing troops, little dreaming what warm friends he was destined to find among the new. First to arrive, with a single orderly in attendance, was the regimental quartermaster, Lieutenant Ralph McCrea, and to him said the quartermaster whom McCrea was to relieve:

"Mac, this young gentleman is Dr. Graham's son George, our candidate for West Point. He knows plainscraft, woodcraft, and mountain scouting as well as you do mathematics. He can ride as well as any man in my troop. Give him a lift in algebra and 'math.,' and he'll teach you all there is worth knowing about this part of the country."

The kindly young West-Pointer seemed to take at once to the surgeon's blushing boy. In the wintry weather that speedily set in there was little opportunity for hunting or exploration in the mountains; but in the long evenings McCrea became a frequent visitor at Dr. Graham's fireside, and finding that Pops had a sound analytical sort of brain in his curly pate, the quartermaster took delight in giving him stiff problems to work out, and taught him the West Point system of deducing rules instead of blindly following without knowing why or wherefore; and the friendship between them waxed and multiplied, and McCrea became warmly enlisted in the effort to secure a vacant cadetship for his boy friend. But knowing there was no chance "at large," as the President had already named his two candidates, the boy had done his best with the local Congressman, who, as Pops had said, had been most gracious and encouraging, but had bestowed the plum upon the son of his rich and influential constituent, Mr. Breifogle, whose brewery gave employment to over fifty voters. As alternate he had named the son of Counsellor Murphy, a lively local politician, and Pop's hopes were dashed.

Not so McCrea's. As quartermaster his duties called him frequently into town, where the First National Bank was the depository, and where he kept the large fund appropriated for rebuilding stables and quarters that had been destroyed by fire the previous year. "Neither of those young fellows," said he to Dr. Graham, "can pass the preliminary examination. It is by long odds too stiff for Breifogle mentally and for Murphy physically. Keep this to ourselves, and get Mr. Pierce to promise that George shall have the next vacancy. If we can get the Colonel to ask it, Pierce will say yes, perhaps; first because they served together in Virginia during the war, and second because he won't think he's promising anything at all. It's his first term, and he doesn't dream how hard that examination is, or how certain Breifogle is to fail. Now, if there were only some way we could 'get a pull' on him."

The way came sooner than was looked or hoped for. One December afternoon, just as the lights were peeping out here and there in the bustling shops of the busy Western town, and a thick, heavy cloud of snow was settling noiselessly upon roof and roadway, and all the foot-hills to the west were robed in white, and all the mountain passes deep in drifts, and the managers of the First National were congratulating themselves that their collections in the swarming mining settlements across the range were complete, and the thousands in coin and greenbacks safely hoarded in their vaults, and brewer Breifogle and two other opulent directors were seated with the president in the bank parlor, rubbing their hands over the neat balance exhibited, and discussing the propriety of a congratulatory despatch to Congressman Pierce, now at his post of duty at Washington, and the paying-teller had just completed the summing up of his cash account, and the bookkeeper was stowing away his huge volumes, and a clerk was lugging sacks of coin and stacks of Treasury notes into the open door of the vault, under the vigilant eye of the cashier, and the janitor had pulled down the shades and barred the iron shutters, and everything spoke eloquently of business security and prosperity – in stepped a squad of velvet-footed, soft-voiced, slouch-hatted strangers, and in the twinkling of an eye cashier and clerk, tellers, book-keeper, and janitor were as completely covered by six-shooters as the new-comers were with snow. It was a clear case of "hands up, everybody." Two of the party sidled into the parlor and stood guard over the magnates, three or four held the outer officials in statuesque discomfort, while two deft-handed individuals loaded up with bills and bags of gold, and vanished softly as they came. Their comrades gave them a start of sixty seconds, and then slowly and calmly backed out into the street, revolvers levelled to the last, and in less than four minutes from the moment of their entrance not one of the gang was in sight. Timing their arrival exactly, they had ridden into town from the northwest just at dusk, left their strong, spirited horses, held by accomplices in a side street not fifty yards away; were in and out, up and away again, in less time than it takes to tell it, and with them ninety thousand dollars in cash.

Vain the rush of clerks and tellers and directors into the snow-covered street. Vain the yells of "Murder!" "Robbers!" "Road-agents!" A crowd collected in a few minutes, but all were afoot and powerless to follow. It would be an hour before the sheriff could muster a mounted party strong enough to pursue; but he had his wits about him.

"It's the old Hatton gang, sure!" he cried. "They dare not go to the mines. They'll make for Marcy's Pass, and scatter when they get to the cove beyond. There's only one hope." And like a deer the active frontiersman ran to the telegraph office.

"Rush this out to the fort!" he cried, as he pencilled a despatch.

"First National just robbed by Hatton gang. Ten men. Ninety thousand gone. Government funds mostly. ["That'll make him act," he muttered.] They're making for Marcy's Pass. You can head 'em off by Squaw Cañon if you send cavalry at once. We follow trail. Answer.

"Brent, Sheriff."

Colonel Belknap, with a knot of officers, was in the club-room just after stables when the despatch was handed to him by the breathless operator. He was an old campaigner, who had served almost a lifetime in the West.

"Mount your troop instantly, Lane!" he called to one of his most trusted captains. "Never mind their supper; they can have that later. Listen to this." And he read the despatch aloud.

The entrance to Marcy's Pass lay about nine miles nearly due west from town. Hatch's Cove was a lovely nook in the summer-time, but almost inaccessible in winter, lying across the range, and approached from the east by the old road through the Pass. Lance Creek, a clear and beautiful stream, rose in the cove and made its way through the range by means of a tortuous and wellnigh impassable gorge known as Squaw Cañon, which opened into the foot-hills not more than two miles and a half away to the westward of Fort Reynolds. All this was promptly discussed even as the sergeants' voices could be heard ringing out the order in the barrack corridors across the parade.

"Turn out, 'E' troop, lively; carbines and revolvers, fur coats and gloves. Jump now, men!"

Down went knife and fork, cup and spoon. Up sprang the laughing, chaffing, boisterous crowd of the moment before. Away they tore to their bunk-room, and grabbed their great-coats and furs; away to the arm-racks for carbine and six-shooter. Quickly they buckled the broad woven cartridge-belts, and then went bounding down the barrack stairs, forming ranks in the softly falling snow. Double time they trotted down to the long, dimly lighted stables, and in among their astonished and snorting horses. In ten minutes they were trotting away to the westward through wellnigh impenetrable darkness, through a muffling snowfall, over an unseen and unknown trail, yet hesitating not a minute; trotting buoyantly, confidently ahead, following a guide who knew every inch of the way to and through the cañon and miles and miles beyond.

"Who can lead them? What scouts have you on your roll who know the hills?" was the Colonel's anxious query of his quartermaster, while the troop was saddling.

"No scouts left, sir, now; but we don't need them. Here's Geordie Graham."

Yes, Pops, and the doctor too, both in saddle and ready; so was McCrea, and so it happened that less than an hour later Luke and Jim Hatton, leaders of the band, bearers of most of the spoil, a hundred yards ahead of their fellows as they issued from the westward end of Marcy's Pass, deeming themselves perfectly secure from any capture except from the rear, ten safe miles away from town, rode slap in among a whole troop of cavalry, and were knocked on the head, disarmed, dismounted, and relieved of their plunder before they could fire a shot or utter a cry of warning.

"We never could have got them in all the world, sir," said both Lane and McCrea, "but for Pops here. He knew the way, even in the dark, and we headed them off in the nick of time."

It was this service that called forth Colonel Belknap's remarks at the head of this chapter. It was this that prompted him to say to the officers of the First National next day that the least they could do was to telegraph the Honorable Mr. Pierce, M.C., urging him to promise that the next vacancy at West Point should be filled by George Montrose Graham. It was the despatch signed by these officials and a dozen leading citizens – for McCrea struck while the iron was hot, and took the paper around himself – that caused Mr. Pierce to wire his pledge in reply. And one day in February there came a note to Dr. Graham's, saying that Counsellor Murphy had been convinced by the leading medical practitioner in town that his boy could never pass the physical examination at the Point, and would better be turning his talents to some other channel, and then Colonel Belknap reminded Mr. Pierce of his promise, and Pierce was caught. On Valentine's Day in 188 – , to Geordie Graham's speechless joy and Buddie's enthusiastic delight, a big official envelope of the War Department was placed in the former's hand. He knew what it meant. He went over and threw his arms around his mother's neck and bent and kissed her, for her loving eyes were swimming in tears.