nks of the battalion.

To the boy fresh from home it is a fearfully hard lot at first. That
it can be lived through and endured, however, is proved by the fact
that about six out of ten of the cadets who enter at West Point
manage to graduate, and go forth into the Army, splendid
specimens of physical and mental manhood. Very few of the
cadets who fail at West Point and are dropped go away from the
Military Academy without a mist before their eyes.

The plebes at West Point are not ostracized by the upper class
men. These new men are merely "kept in their places" with great
severity, and without any encouragement whatever. If the plebe
can't stand it, then he is plainly not of the stuff to make a
soldier. If he does stand it, he goes on into the upper classes,
one after another, graduates and is commissioned by the President
as a second lieutenant in the United States Army.

It is a hard ordeal, that fellowship of "nothingness" during the
first portion of the West Point course.

Homesickness is the worst ailment of the new cadet. Day by day
he grows more homesick until it seems to him that he simply
cannot endure the Military Academy for another twenty-four
hours.

One afternoon, while taking a walk as a relief from too hard
application to his mathematics, Cadet Dick Prescott stumbled
upon some news that made him open his eyes very wide.

"Well, of all things!" he growled to himself.

Then he walked faster.

"Greg must hear of this," muttered the new plebe.

Going down the street at military stride, Cadet Prescott turned in at
the north sally port, stepped briskly along one of the walks,
bounded up the steps and in at the outer door of the subdivision in
which he dwelt.

Up the stairs with considerable speed went Cadet Prescott, still
revolving in his mind the news upon which he had stumbled.

"What on earth will Greg think?" throbbed the new plebe.

In a very short time Prescott's hurrying feet carried him to the door
of his room on the top floor. The door yielded as Dick put his hand
to the knob.

"Greg, what do you think?" whispered Dick breathlessly, as he
went quickly into the room and toward his roommate, who sat bent
over his study table.

The very attitude was unmilitary--a fact that struck Prescott
suddenly.

Then Greg, hearing his roommate's voice, raised his head
somewhat and wheeled about in his chair.

What a woebegone face Cadet Gregory Holmes presented!

"Greg, what on earth is th