Stubbs. "I was over at the rifle range,
you know."

"Then I'll tell you what happened."

Cadet Jordan began a narration of the scene that had ended in
his being relieved from engineering instruction that forenoon.
Jordan didn't exactly lie, which is always a dangerous thing
for a West Point cadet to do, but he colored his narrative so
cleverly as to make it rather plain that Cadet Prescott had acted
beyond his real authority.

"Still," argued Stubbs doubtfully, "there must have been some
reason. I've known Prescott ever since he entered the Academy,
and I never saw anything underhanded in him."

"I wouldn't call it underhanded, either," explained Jordan.
"Prescott's manner with me might much better be described as
overbearing."

"It would have been underhanded, had he reported you when you
were really doing nothing unmilitary or improper," interposed
Stubbs quickly.

"Are you trying to defend the fellow?" demanded Jordan swiftly.

"No; Prescott, I think, is always quite ready to attend to his
own defence. But I'm astonished, Jordan, at the charge you make
against him, and I'm trying to understand it."

"What I object to, more than anything else," insisted Jordan,
"was his making a fool of me before new yearlings. That is where
I think the greatest grievance lies. First classmen are men of
some dignity. We are not to be treated like plebes, especially
by any members of our own class who may be dressed in a little
brief authority. Sit down, won't you, Stubbs?"

"No, thank you, Jordan. I must be on my way soon."

"But I want to get you and a half a dozen other representative
first classmen together," wheedled Jordan. "I think we should
all talk this over as a strictly class matter. Then, if I'm convinced
that I'm in the wrong, I'm going to stop talking."

Crafty Jordan didn't mean exactly what he said.

He would stop talking, if convinced, but he didn't intend to be
convinced. He was after Dick Prescott's scalp. Jordan well knew
that, at West Point (and at Annapolis, too, for that matter) class
action against a man is severer and more irrevocable than even
any action that the authorities of the Military Academy itself
can take. He wanted to put Prescott wholly in the wrong in the
matter. Class action could, at need, drive Prescott out of the
corps and end his connection with the Army. For, if a man be
condemned by his class at West Point, the feud is carried over
into the Army as long as th