"Well, if they're not dressing for something," calculated Mrs. Bentley, "you may be sure they're moving about looking as elegant as ever and making themselves highly agreeable in a social way."
Ye gods of war! At that very moment Dick, in field uniform, and dripping profusely under the hot sun, was carrying a long succession of planks, each nearly as long and heavy as he could manage, to other cadets who waited to nail them in place on a pontoon bridge out over an arm of the Hudson. Greg Holmes was one of four young men toiling at the rope by which they were endeavoring to drag a mountain howitzer into position up a steep slope near Crow's Nest, while Anstey, studying field fortification, was digging in a trench with all his might and main.
CHAPTER X
THE CURE FOR PLEBE ANIMAL SPIRITS
So the weeks slipped by.
Up at five in the morning, busy most of the time until six in the evening, the cadets of the first, third and fourth classes found ample time to enjoy themselves between dark and taps, at 10.30, except when guard duty or something else interfered.
Much of the "idle" time through the day was spent in short naps, to make up for that short six hours and a half of regular night sleep.
Yet all the young men seemed to thrive in their life of hard work and outdoor air.
Hazing was proceeding merrily, so far as some of the yearlings were concerned. Perhaps half of the class in all engaged in two or more real hazings through the summer. A few of the third classmen became almost inveterate hazers.
But Dick Prescott, true to the principles had stated at the beginning of the encampment, hazed a plebe only when he believed it to be actually necessary in order to keep properly down some bumptious new man.