“That’s a youngster with quite a picturesque future ahead of him, I imagine,” continued Mr. Dunstan. “I call him the luckiest boy alive. Perhaps he is not quite that, but he is going to be a very rich man if he follows a certain career.”
“It must be an Army career, then,” hinted Halstead.
“It is, just that. And I suppose I might as well tell you the story, if it would interest you any. A lot of people know the story now, so there’s no harm in repeating it.”
Their host paused to light a cigar before he resumed:
“Ours used to be a good deal of a military family. In fact, every generation supplied two or three good soldiers. There were five Dunstans, all officers, serving in the War of the Revolution. There were four in the War of 1812, two in the War with Mexico and two in the Civil War. We gradually fell off a bit, you see, in the numbers we supplied to the Army. The two who served in the Civil War were uncles of mine. My father didn’t go—wasn’t physically fit. There were three of us brothers, Gregory, Aaron and myself. Both were older than I. Aaron would have made a fine soldier, but he was always weakly. The fact that he couldn’t wear the uniform almost broke his heart. Yet Aaron had one fine talent. He knew how to make money almost without trying. In fact, he died a very rich man.
“Greg, on the other hand, was what I expect you would call the black sheep of the family. He went to Honduras years ago. He’s a planter, doing fairly well there, I suppose. He’s pretty wild, just as he used to be. He’s always getting mixed up in the many revolutions that they have down in that little republic of Honduras. One of these days I’m afraid he’ll be shot by a file of government soldiers for being mixed up in some new revolutionary plot.
“My brother Aaron never married. Greg has two daughters, but no sons. Ted is my only son and Aaron just worshiped the lad as the last of the race. Aaron wanted Ted to become a soldier and keep the family in the Army. The youngster was willing enough, but I didn’t wholly fancy it. However, my brother Aaron died a little while ago and I found he had fixed the matter so that Ted will have to be a soldier.”
“How could your brother do that?” asked Tom.
“Why, you see, under the will, brother Greg is let off with one hundred thousand dollars and I get the same. But there’s a proviso in the will that if, within ninety days from Aaron’s death, Ted appears in probate court with me or other guardian, and there both Ted and myself promise that he shall be reared for the United States Army, then half a million dollars is to be paid over to myself or other guardian, in trust for the boy. The income from that half million is to be used to rear and educate him. But Ted, as a part of his promise, must make every effort to get himself appointed a cadet at West Point.”
“Some other boy might get the cadetship away from him,” suggested Joe Dawson.