lp him to hospital.
Nor did the yearling get out very soon. His jaw had not been
fractured, but for some days the medical officers feared
"green-stick" fracture, with a consequent danger of suppuration. It
was not until after the end of the encampment that the yearling
was discharged from hospital.

"Where's Mr. Butler to-night?" inquired a very pretty girl, as she
strolled through camp in the evening, between two attentive
yearlings. She was the same whom Butler had last accompanied to
a hop.

"Mr. Butler is in hospital," replied Mr. McGraw.

"Yes, and pounded to such a pulp that his mother wouldn't know
him," laughed a young "cit.," the girl's cousin. "Over there is
Holmes, the plebe who did it."

"What a disgusting brute Mr. Holmes must be!" muttered the girl
indignantly, and Greg, hearing her, colored violently, but could not
reply. Plebes are not allowed the acquaintance of the young ladies.

CHAPTER XVI

TAPS SOUNDS ON SUMMER

Cadet Dodge spent the last days of the encampment on sick
report.

He got word that Mr. Poultney was one of the yearlings concerned
in his discomfiture on post number three, and boldly confronted
the yearling with the charge.

In the fight that followed Dodge received a fearful walloping from
Mr. Poultney.

The laws of courtesy are enforced by these fights. A new man,
entering the United States Military Academy, often has a most
exaggerated idea of his own importance and merits. In some
instances the new cadet is likely to disregard the rights of upper
class men. A fight puts the offending plebe where he belongs.
Further, the knowledge that he will have to fight for every serious
infraction of the rules of courtesy results in quickly making a
disciplined soldier and considerate gentleman out of the cadet who
is inclined to be bumptious.

In the training of personal character it may readily be believed that
the cadet's plebe year, with its "chalk-line" and repression, is worth
all the rest of the time spent at West Point.

Milk-sops and peace-at-any-price advocates may as well turn their
attention away from West Point. These ultra-peaceable ones, who
long for the promotion of peace through the abolition of all armies,
have at hand an experiment that can be carried out only on a
smaller scale.

Let these peace-at-any-price agitators, in a given community, set
about to stamp out crime by abolishing the police force! An army
is merely a force of international policem