It was a curious assembly that "turned out"—a mass of bundles, brooms and buckets, with a few staggering plebes underneath. They marched up to camp that way, too, and it was with audible sighs of relief that they dropped their burdens at the end.
A word of description of "Camp McPherson" may be of interest to those who have never visited West Point. It is important that the reader should be familiar with its appearance, for many of Mark's adventures were destined to happen there—some of them this very same night.
The camp is half a mile or so from barracks, just beyond the Cavalry Plain and very close to old Fort Clinton. The site is a pretty one, the white tents standing out against the green of the shade trees and the parapet of the fort.
The tents are arranged in four "company streets" and are about five feet apart. The tents have wooden platforms for floors and are large enough for four cadets each. A long wooden box painted green serves as the "locker"—it has no lock or key—and a wooden rod near the ridge pole serves as a wardrobe. And that is the sum total of the furniture.
The plebes made their way up the company streets and the cadet officers in charge, under the supervision of the "tacs," assigned them to their tents. Fortunately, plebes are allowed to select their own tent mates; it may readily be believed the four devils of A company went together. By good fortune the three remaining in B company, as was learned later, found one whole tent left over and so were spared the nuisance of a stranger in their midst—a fact which was especially gratifying to the exclusive Master Chauncey.
Having been assigned to their tents, the plebes were set to work under the brief instructions of a cadet corporal at the task of arranging their household effects. This is done with mathematical exactness. There is a place for everything, and a penalty for not keeping it there. Blankets, comforters, pillows, etc., go in a pile at one corner. A looking-glass hangs on the front tent pole; a water bucket is deposited on the front edge of the platform; candlesticks, candles, cleaning materials, etc., are kept in a cylindrical tin box at the foot of the rear tent pole; and so on it goes, through a hundred items or so. There are probably no more uniform things in all nature than the cadet tents in camp. The proverbial peas are not to be compared with them.
The amount of fear and trembling which was caused to those four friends of ours in a certain A company tent by the contraband goods of Texas and the Parson is difficult to imagine. The cadet corporal, lynx-eyed and vigilant, scarcely gave them a chance to hide anything. It was only by Mark's interposing his body before his friends that they managed to slide their precious cargoes in under the blankets, a temporary hiding place. And even when the articles were thus safely hidden, what must that officious yearling do but march over and rearrange the pile accurately, almost touching one of the revolvers, and making the four tremble and quake in their boots.
They managed the task without discovery, however, and went on with their work. And by the first drum beat for dress parade that afternoon, everything was done up in spick-and-span order, to the eye at any rate.
Dress parade was a formality in which the plebes took no part but that of interested spectators. They huddled together shyly in their newly occupied "plebe hotels" and watched the yearlings, all in spotless snowy uniforms, "fall in" on the company street outside. The yearlings were wild with delight and anticipation at having the strangers right among them at last, and they manifested great interest in the plebes, their dwellings, and in fact in everything about them. Advice and criticism, and all kinds of guying that can be imagined were poured upon the trembling lads' heads, and this continued in a volley until the second drum changed the merry crowd into a silent and motionless line of soldiers.
Mark could scarcely keep his excitable friend Texas from sallying out then and there to attack some of the more active members of this hilarious crowd. It was evident that, while no plebe escaped entirely, there was no plebe hotel in A company so much observed as their own. For the three B. J.-est plebes in the whole plebe class were known to be housed therein. Cadet Mallory, "professional hero," was urged in all seriousness to come out and rescue somebody on the spot, which oft-repeated request, together with other merry chaffing, he bore with a good-natured smile. Cadet Stanard was plagued with geological questions galore, among which the "cyathophylloid" occupied a prominent place. Cadet Powers was dared to come out and lasso a stray "tac," whose blue-uniformed figure was visible out on the parade ground. And Mr. Chilvers found the state of "craps" a point of great solicitude to all.