"Yes."
"And you had to go to work and arrange amateur dramatics like a flash. So when the tac. pops in here, he finds those most estimable young ruffians conducting an innocent day school here!"
"Well?" demanded Prescott.
"Why didn't you leave it for that yearling couple to pull their own chestnuts out of the fire?"
"Because," replied Dick quietly, "I'm not going to be the means, if I can help it of having any man kicked out of this corps when he's as anxious to be a soldier as I am!"
"You're a ninny, just the same!" Bert decided.
"And you're a hopeless minority here, Dodge, so come along back to our room," broke in Anstey. "We've some boning of our own to do before the call sounds for supper formation."
Before the battalion of cadets marched to supper, through the heavy storm that night, the news of Dick Prescott's inspiration had traveled pretty firmly through the yearling class.
It is against all West Point traditions to make a hero of a plebe. Not a word of congratulation came to Cadet Prescott. It wouldn't even save the young man from being the victim of a lot of hazing pranks, for these inflictions were deemed necessary to the plebe's training. None the less, the incident, as it became known, caused the impression to spread that Cadet Prescott was a good fellow and that he was likely to prove a credit to the grand old United States Military Academy.
Hazing a thing of the past at West Point! The War Department and the authorities at the Military Academy have done all they could, and will continue to do all in their power to stamp out hazing.