To The Front.

by Charles King.

PRELUDE

It was graduation day at West Point, and there had been a remarkable scene at the morning ceremonies. In the presence of the Board of Visitors, the full-uniformed officers of the academic and military staff, the august professors and their many a.s.sistants, scores of daintily dressed women and dozens of sober-garbed civilians, the a.s.sembled Corps of Cadets, in their gray and white, had risen as one man and cheered to the echo a soldierly young fellow, their "first captain," as he received his diploma and then turned to rejoin them. It was an unusual incident. Every man preceding had been applauded, some of them vehemently. Every man after him, and they were many, received his meed of greeting and congratulation, but the portion accorded Cadet Captain "Geordie" Graham, like that of Little Benjamin, exceeded all others, and a prominent banker and business man, visiting the Point for the first time, was moved to inquire why.

"I think," said the officer addressed, a man of his own age, though his spare form and smooth-shaven cheek and chin made him look ten years younger--"I think it is that Graham has been tried in all manner of ways and has proved equal to every occasion. They say he's sheer grit."

A keen and close observer was the banker--"a student of men," he called himself. He had been tried in many a way and proved equal to every occasion. He had risen from the ranks to the summit. He, too, they said in Chicago, was "sheer grit." Moreover, they did not say he had "made his pile out of others' losings"; but, like most men who have had to work hard to win it, until it began to come so fast that it made itself, John Bonner judged men very much by their power to earn money.

Money was his standard, his measure of success.

And this, perhaps, was why John Bonner could never understand his brother-in-law, the colonel, a most distinguished soldier, a modest and most enviable man.

Twenty-five years had Bonner known that now gray-haired, gray-mustached veteran. Twenty-five years had he liked him, admired him, and much of late had he sought to know him, but Hazzard was a man he could not fathom.

"Fifteen years ago," said he to a fellow-magnate, "I told that man if he'd quit soldiering, and bring Carrie and the children to Chicago, I'd guarantee him an income ten times the regular pay he's getting; and he smiled, thanked me, and said he was quite content--content, sir, on two thousand a year, and so, too, was Sis. Now, think of that!"

And Bonner was bubbling over with the same idea to-day, yet beginning to see light. Two prominent senators, men of world-wide renown, held Hazzard long in close conference, and were merely civil to him, the magnate, who, as he said, "could buy the three of 'em three times over." A general whose name was but second to that of Grant seized his brother-in-law by both hands, and seemed delighted to greet him, yet had barely a word for "his millions," him to whom the Board of Trade bowed humbly at home. A great war secretary, whom they had recently dined at the Grand Pacific and whose dictum as to the purchase of supplies meant much to Chicago, but vaguely remembered and absently greeted the man of wealth, yet beamed with pleasure at sight of his small-salaried soldier companion. The secretary drew Hazzard off to one side, in fact, and left the man of stocks and the stock-yards standing.

That evening, after the simple home dinner, with Carrie and the young people and the colonel smiling about the board, Bonner's vexation of spirit found vent. Duties drew the soldier away, and the banker was left with his sister.

"What is your pay _now_, Carrie?" he abruptly asked.

"A row of threes, John--$333.33 a month," was the amused answer.

"And Hazzard's been through two wars, Heaven knows how many campaigns and vicissitudes, and been serving the United States, night and day, some thirty years, and that's all he has to show for it, every cent of which has to go for living expenses--rearing, feeding, clothing, and educating these youngsters."

"Pretty nearly. We've a little laid by for Jack's college, and the President gives Lou his cadetship, you know, but"--and here the blithe-faced little woman looked archly at "Uncle John," though her look was one that said, "I mean every word of this"--"we don't think that's all there is to it, by any manner of means. Think of his war record! Isn't that a proud thing to leave to our boys? See how he is regarded by the best men in our country, from the President down! He is not yet an old man, but he has 'all that should accompany old age--love, honor, obedience, troops of friends'--and, honestly, John, with health and competence and _us_, what more _should_ he want?"

"Well," said Bonner, tenaciously, "I could have put him where he would have been worth three hundred thousand by this time."

"And it wouldn't have tempted him; and I'd rather see him as he is."

"Well, I'm blessed if I can understand it," said Bonner. Then callers put a stop to the chat. Then the colonel himself came home to his cosey quarters, and silence had settled down over the beautiful plain. The lights were dimmed in the barracks; the sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize the tall, erect young fellow on whose arm she proudly leaned as she walked home through the shifting moonlight.

"That was young Graham, in whom you were so interested this morning,"

said Hazzard, briefly.

"_Was_ it? Oh, I thought he'd gone with the graduates."

"Only down to the city to say good-bye. He came back to his mother by late train. I fancy she's more to him than a lot of fun with the boys."

"See here, Hazzard," observed Bonner, solemnly, "I've been looking into things here nigh onto a week. It's fine! It's all right for a soldier school! But, now take that young chap for a sample. What on earth does he know outside of drill and mathematics and what you call discipline?

What could he do in case we cut off all this--this foolishness--and came down to business? I'd be willing to bet a sweet sum that, take him out of the army, turn him loose in the streets, and he'd starve, by gad! before he could ever earn enough to pay for a quick lunch."

"I think you'd lose," was the quiet answer.

"Well, I'd just like to try it. Pit him and his kind against our keen-witted, sharp, aggressive young _bus_iness men--men with _bus_iness heads, _bus_iness experience"--Bonner's emphasis on the first syllable was reinforced by a bang of the fist on the arm of his chair--"and, and, by gad! they'd be skinned alive--skinned out of their last cent, sir."

"That," said the colonel, dryly, "is not improbable. They are trained as soldiers, not as sharpers. But, all the same, in spite, if you please, of their soldier training, I fancy most of these lads that quit us to-day, if brought face to face with sudden emergency, responsibility, something calling for courage, coolness, judgment--above all, for action--would hold their own, and I'd back them even in compet.i.tion with your aggressive young friends in business life."

"Why, they're taught to deal only with soldiers--with machines--not men," argued Bonner.

"Well, such as they have handled men not soldiers more than once, in your own city, Bonner, and to your vast benefit. They'll come to it again some day. As for that young man, I picked him a year ago from his whole cla.s.s for the place that calls for the most judgment, tact, quiet force, capacity to command--the 'first captaincy'--and never did I see it better filled."

"Oh, granted as to that! But strip off the uniform, sword, and authority; set him among the men _we_ have to deal with--what could he do with a railway strike? How could he handle maddened mill operatives, laborers, switchmen, miners? Think of that, Hazzard! That isn't fighting Indians, with a regiment at your back. You mark what I say!"

"Well, mobs, miners, or Indians, our young officers have had to meet all kinds at times," said the colonel; "and if ever Graham is up against them, Bonner, I'm thinking you'll hear of it."

And, oddly enough, before he was one month older, sitting in his office in Chicago, Bonner was hearing it with a vengeance. There was the mischief to pay in at least one of his mines. Oddly enough, before he was one year older, George Montrose Graham, graduated cadet, was "up against them," all three--mobs, miners, and Indians. How he met them and how he merited the colonel's confidence let them judge who read.

CHAPTER I

FROM THE GRAY TO THE BLUE

It was just after sunset of one of the longest days of the loveliest of our summer months. The roar of the evening gun had gone re-echoing through the Highlands of the Hudson. The great garrison flag was still slowly fluttering earthward, veiled partially from the view of the throng of spectators by the snowy cloud of sulphur smoke drifting lazily away upon the wing of the breeze. Afar over beyond the barren level of the cavalry plain the gilded hands of the tower-clock on "the old Academic" were blended into one in proclaiming to all whom it might concern that it was five minutes past the half-hour 'twixt seven and eight, and there were girls in every group, and many a young fellow in the rigid line of gray and white before them, resentful of the fact that dress parade was wofully late and long, with tattoo and taps only two hours or so away. The season for the regular summer "hops" had not yet begun, for this was away back in the eighties, when many another old West Point fashion still prevailed; but there was to be an informal dance in the dining-room of the hotel, and it couldn't come off until after supper, and supper had to be served to some people who were "pokey" enough to care to come by late boat, or later train, and were more eager to see the cadets on parade than to seek Mine Host Craney's once bountiful table.

What made it more exasperating was that rumors were afloat to the effect that the adjutant had long and important orders to publish, and this would still further prolong the parade. Cadet Private Frazier, First Cla.s.s, one of the best dancers in the battalion, was heard to mutter to his next-door neighbor in the front rank of the color company: "It'll be nine o'clock before we get things going at the hotel, and we've got to quit at nine-thirty. _Con_found the orders!"

And yet, peering from under the visor of his shako, Mr. Frazier could see without disturbing the requisite pose of his head, "up and straight to the front, chin drawn in," that over near the south end of the row of gayly attired visitors, seated or standing at the edge of the camp parade-ground, there was one group, at least, to whom, as Frazier knew, the orders meant much more than the dance. There, switching the short gra.s.s with his stocky cane, stood their grim senior surgeon, Doctor, or Major, Graham. There, close beside him and leaning on the arm of a slender but athletic, sun-tanned young fellow in trim civilian dress, stood the doctor's devoted wife. With them was a curly-headed youth, perhaps seventeen years of age, restless, eager, and impatient for the promised news. Making his way eagerly but gently through the dense throng of onlookers, a bronze-faced, keen-eyed, powerfully built officer in the uniform of the cavalry came up at the moment and joined them. "Have you heard anything yet?" he murmured to Mrs. Graham, whose kind and gentle eyes seemed to light at sound of his voice.

"Not yet," she answered, with a shake of the head. "All we learned just a few minutes ago was that the order was here and would be published on parade. The commandant returned only just in time."

"And there's been no telegram--no word from outside?"

"Not a thing, Mr. McCrea. It just so happened."

"Well, if that isn't odd! To begin with, it's most unusual to get out the order so early. They must be in a hurry to a.s.sign the graduates this year. Pops, old boy, if you don't get our regiment, I'll say the secretary of war is deaf to the wishes of every officer and most of the men. We told him when he came out to look over Fort Reynolds, and incidentally look into the mines--but that was last year--Oh, bother, Williams," he suddenly broke off, "what do you want to lose precious time for, putting 'em through the manual?"

This sudden outbreak was levelled at the unconscious officer commanding the parade (the "officer in charge," as he was termed), Mr.

Williams having replied, "Take your post, sir," to the adjutant's stately salute in presenting the statuesque line. Whereupon the adjutant "recovered" sword, strode briskly up, pa.s.sed beyond the plumed commander, and took his station to his left and rear. With much deliberation of manner, Mr. Williams drew sabre and easily gave the various orders for the showy manual of arms, the white-gloved hands moving like clockwork in response to his command until, with simultaneous thud, the battalion resumed the "order," certain spectators with difficulty repressing the impulse to applaud.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CADETS AT DRILL, WEST POINT]

Then back to the centre stalked the young adjutant, Mrs. Graham unconsciously drawing unflattering comparison between the present inc.u.mbent, soldierly though he seemed, and her own boy's a.s.sociate and friend, Claude Benton, adjutant of the cla.s.s graduated barely a fortnight earlier, "her own boy," perhaps the most honored among them.

She was clinging to his arm now, her pride and joy through all his years of st.u.r.dy boyhood and manly youth. She knew well that the hope and longing of his heart was to be a.s.signed to the cavalry regiment of which Lieutenant McCrea was quartermaster, the regiment once stationed at old Fort Reynolds, in the Rockies, when Dr. Graham was there as post surgeon and Geordie was preparing for West Point. Indeed, Mr. McCrea had "coached" her son in mathematics, and had been most helpful in securing the appointment. And now here was the quartermaster on leave of absence, the first he had had in years, spending several weeks of his three months' rest at the scene of his own soldier school-days.

But it was "Bud," her younger son, who had come rushing down to the surgeon's quarters only a few minutes before parade with the all-important news. "Mither!--Geordie!" he cried, "Captain Cross says the a.s.signment order's come and will be published at parade. Hurry up!"

Dr. Graham could hardly believe it. As McCrea said, the War Department seldom issued the order before mid-July. "Mac" even hoped to be in Washington in time to say a word to the adjutant-general in Geordie's behalf. It was known that many would be a.s.signed to the artillery, to which Cadet Graham had been recommended by the Academic Board. But all his boyhood had been spent on the frontier; his earliest recollections were of the adobe barracks and sun-dried, sun-cracked, sun-scorched parade of old Camp Sandy in Arizona. He had learned to ride an Indian pony in Wyoming before he was eight; he had learned to shoot in Montana before he was twelve; and he had ridden, hunted, fished, and shot all over the wide West before the happy days that sent him to the great cadet school of the nation. And now that he was graduated, with all his heart and hope and ambition he prayed that he might be commissioned in a cavalry regiment, if possible in McCrea's. Give him _that_, he said, and he would ask no favor from any man.

How his heart was beating as he watched the adjutant, whom he himself had schooled and drilled and almost made, for Graham had been famous in his cadet days as a most successful squad instructor, a model first sergeant, and a great "first captain." How odd it seemed that he, a graduate, and that all these people, officers, and children, should now be hanging on the words that might fall from the younger soldier's lips! A telegram from Washington had told a veteran general visiting at the Point that his son had been a.s.signed to the artillery, that the order would doubtless be published that evening. But it so happened that not until just before parade did the commandant return from a long ride, and so had no time to read it through. He had simply handed it, with others, to the silent young soldier, who had stood in full uniform full five minutes awaiting his coming. "Better order 'parade rest' part of time. It's a long read," he briefly said, and, stowing the orders under his sash, the adjutant had saluted, faced about, and hastened away.