It was the general belief that the students in these Western colleges, many of them farmers' sons, could never be taught the West Point idea. "But the Lieutenant who had just arrived from Lincoln received an impression startlingly in contrast to the general one. He looked over the big crowd of powerful young men, and, himself a storehouse and radiating center of energy and forcefulness, recognized the same qualities when he saw them.
"'By George! I've got the finest material in the world,'" he told the Chancellor, his steel-like eyes alight with enthusiasm. 'You could do anything with those boys. They've got the stuff in them! Watch me get it out!'
"And he proceeded to do so.
"By the middle of the first winter the battalion was in shape to drill together. Moreover, the boys had made a nickname for their leader, and nicknames mean a great deal in student life. He was universally called 'the Lieut.' (pronounced 'Loot,' of course, in the real American accent), as though there were but one lieutenant in the world. This he was called behind his back, of course. To his face they called him 'sir,' a title of respect which they had never thought to give to any man alive.
"By the end of that first academic year every man under him would have followed 'the Lieut.' straight into a prairie fire, and would have kept step while doing it."
As he gradually got his group of officers licked into shape, he found less to do personally. So he promptly complained to the Chancellor, to this effect, and asked, like Oliver Twist, for more.
"After a moment's stupefaction (the Lieut. was then doing five times the work that any officer before him had ever done) the Chancellor burst into a great laugh and suggested that the Lieut. should take the law course in the law school of the University. He added that if two men's work was not enough for him, he might do three men's, and teach some of the classes in the Department of Mathematics. Without changing his stride in the least, the young officer swept these two occupations along with him, bought some civilian clothes and a derby hat, and became both professor and student in the University, where he was also military attaché.
"During the next two years he ate up the law course with a fiery haste which raised the degree of class work to fever heat. Those who were fellow students with him, and survived, found the experience immensely stimulating."
Of course he graduated, and was thus entitled to write another title after his name—that of Bachelor of Arts. About this time, also, he was promoted to a first lieutenancy, the first official recognition for his many long months of work. Then he was sent back to the field again, to join the Tenth Cavalry at Fort Assiniboine, Montana.
Next came a welcome command to take the position of Assistant Instructor of Tactics, at West Point. It was almost like getting back home, to see these loved hills, the mighty river, and the familiar barracks again.