g, a
note of command coming into his voice.

And they did.

The next duty which fell to Lieutenant Pershing was quite different.
From chasing Indians and outlaws on the plains, he was assigned to the
task of putting some "half baked" cadets through their paces. In
September, 1891, he became Professor of Military Science and Tactics at
the University of Nebraska.

The discipline at this school was of a piece with that of other State
colleges, where a certain amount of drilling was demanded, but beyond
this the students were allowed to go their own gait. At Nebraska it
had become pretty lax--but the arrival of the new instructor changed
all that. A student of this time, in a recent article in _The Red
Cross Magazine_, gives a humorous account of what happened.

It was the general belief that the students in these Western colleges,
many of them farmers' sons, could never be taught the West Point idea.
"But the Lieutenant who had just arrived from Lincoln received an
impression startlingly in contrast to the general one. He looked over
the big crowd of powerful young men, and, himself a storehouse and
radiating center of energy and forcefulness, recognized the same
qualities when he saw them.

"'By George! I've got the finest material in the world,'" he told the
Chancellor, his steel-like eyes alight with enthusiasm. 'You could do
anything with those boys. They've got the stuff in them! Watch me get
it out!'

"And he proceeded to do so.

"By the middle of the first winter the battalion was in shape to drill
together. Moreover, the boys had made a nickname for their leader, and
nicknames mean a great deal in student life. He was universally called
'the Lieut.' (pronounced 'Loot,' of course, in the real American
accent), as though there were but one lieutenant in the world. This he
was called behind his back, of course. To his face they called him
'sir,' a title of respect which they had never thought to give to any
man alive.

"By the end of that first academic year every man under him would have
followed 'the Lieut.' straight into a prairie fire, and would have kept
step while doing it."

As he gradually got his group of officers licked into shape, he found
less to do personally. So he promptly complained to the Chancellor, to
this effect, and asked, like Oliver Twist, for more.

"After a moment's stupefaction (the Lieut. was then doing five times
the work that any officer before him had ever done