g our medicine. Don't lose the gait
even before you've got it. We came here to take our medicine and
learn to be soldiers, didn't we?"

"Squad, attention!" rasped out Corporal Brayton, wheeling and
once more favoring his own green lot with his whole regard.

Repeatedly he showed these new men how to stand, how to hold
themselves and how to do it without appearing ridiculous. So
crisp, so rapping and even decorously abusive was Mr. Brayton
that the boys under his command at this moment would have
gasped had they been told that Brayton was considered one of the
easiest and best-natured of the cadet corporals. Brayton had his
work to do--that was all. It was part of his own training to learn
how to whip an awkward squad into time in the shortest possible
order.

By-and-by all these anxious, even trembling, candidates were
instructed in the mystery of marching a few steps at command,
how to keep their alignment on the right guide, how to halt, the
facings and all that.

"Now, we'll pass on to learning to count fours, and how to march
off in column of fours," announced Brayton. "Squad halt!" he
commanded hoarsely, in disgust, ere the young men had taken four
steps. "Listen to me more attentively, and try more closely to
follow orders!" glared the young corporal.

After that it seemed as though Cadet Corporal Brayton could have
no other aim in life than to drive his squad of candidates away
from West Point. At almost every move through the drill he
berated them caustically, though in such faultless military language
of reproof as to keep him from censure.

"Dismissed," glared Brayton at last. "The candidates will go to
their rooms until summoned again."

Dick and Greg both felt stiff in the legs. Their backs ached from
the long-continued drilling in what was yet, to them, the rigor of
near-military carriage. Both chums toiled up the stairs to their bare
room.

"Oh, you brute!" muttered Greg, standing in the middle of the
room and shaking his fist in the direction of the area.

"Meaning--whom?" queried Prescott, with a wan smile.

"Whom could I mean but Brayton?" almost hissed young Holmes.
"Why does that fellow hate us all so?"

"I'll tell you a secret, if you want to hear it," proposed Dick
mysteriously.

"Please!" begged Candidate Holmes.

"Then I don't believe he does hate us."

"What?" gasped Greg incredulously.

"I don't believe he'd remember half our faces if he passed the
members of his squad in