It may be well at the start to have a word to say about "hazing" at West Point. Hazing is abolished there, so people say. At any rate, there are stringent measures taken to prevent it. A cadet is forbidden in any way to lay hands upon the plebe; he is forbidden to give any degrading command or exact any menial service; and the penalty for breaking these rules is dismissal. The plebe is called up daily before the tactical officer in charge of his company, and asked if he has any complaint to make.
Such are the methods. The results are supposed to be a complete stopping of "deviling" in all its forms. The actual result has been that when a yearling wants to "lay hands upon the plebe" he does it on the sly—perhaps "yanks" him, as one peculiar form of nocturnal torture is termed. When the yearling wants some work done, instead of "commanding" he "requests," and with the utmost politeness. If he wants his gun cleaned he kindly offers to "show" the plebe how to do it—taking care to see that the showing is done on his own gun and not on the plebe's. And the plebe is not supposed to object. He may, but in that case there are other methods. If he reports anybody he is ostracised—"cut" by every one, his own class included.
This being the case, we come to the events of this particular Saturday afternoon.
"There were three wily yearlings
Set out one summer's day
To hunt the plebe so timid
In barracks far away."
Only in this case there were half a dozen instead of three.
Now, of all the persons selected for torment that year, with the possible exception of Mark and Texas, the two "B. J.'s," Indian was the most prominent. "Indian," as he was now called by the whole corps, was a rara avis among plebes, being an innocent, gullible person who believed implicitly everything that was told him, and could be scared to death by a word. It was Indian that this particular crowd of merry yearlings set out to find.
Mark and Texas, it chanced, had gone out for a walk; "Parson" Stanard had, wandered over to the library building to "ascertain the extent of their geological literature," and to get some information, if possible, about a most interesting question which was just then troubling him.
And poor Joe Smith was all alone in his room, dreading some visitation of evil.
The laughing crowd dashed up the steps and burst into the room. Indian had been told what to do. "Heels together, turn out your toes, hands by your sides, palms to the front, fingers closed, little fingers on the seams of the trousers, head up, chin in, shoulders thrown back, chest out. Here, you! Get that scared look off your face. Whacher 'fraid of. If you don't stop looking scared I'll murder you on the spot!"
And with preliminary introduction the whole crowd got at him at once.