PAGE 17
From "The Point" To The Plains
by
Coming forth again he throws wide open the swinging screen doors, and a broad belt of light is flashed across the dusty highway just in front of a rapidly-driven carriage coming north. The mettlesome horses swerve and shy. The occupants are suddenly whirled from their reposeful attitudes, though, fortunately, not from their seats. A “top hat” goes spinning out into the roadway, and a fan flies through the midst of the glare. The driver promptly checks his team and backs them just as Billy, all impulsive courtesy, leaps out into the street; picks up the hat with one hand, the fan with the other, and restores them with a bow to their owners. Only in the nick of time does he recollect himself and crush down the jovial impulse to hail by name Colonel Stanley and his daughter Miriam. The sight of a cavalry uniform and Lieutenant Lee’s tall figure on the forward seat has, however, its restraining influence, and he turns quickly away–unrecognized.
But alas for Billy! Only two days before had the distribution been made, and every man in the graduating class was already wearing the beautiful token of their brotherhood. The civilian garb, the Derby hat, the monocle, the stick, the cigarette, and the false moustache were all very well in their way, but in the beam of light from the windows of that ill-starred saloon there flashed upon his hand a gem that two pairs of quick, though reluctant eyes could not and did not fail to see,–the class ring of 187-.
CHAPTER V.
A MIDNIGHT INSPECTION.
There was a sense of constraint among the occupants of Colonel Stanley’s carriage as they were driven back to the Point. They had been calling on old friends of his among the pretty villas below the Falls; had been chatting joyously until that sudden swerve that pitched the colonel’s hat and Miriam’s fan into the dust, and the veteran cavalryman could not account for the lull that followed. Miriam had instantly grasped the situation. All her father’s stories of cadet days had enabled her to understand at once that here was a cadet–a classmate of Philip’s–“running it” in disguise. Mr. Lee, of course, needed no information on the subject. What she hoped was, that he had not seen; but the cloud on his frank, handsome face still hovered there, and she knew him too well not to see that he understood everything. And now what was his duty? Something told her that an inspection of barracks would be made immediately upon his return to the Point, and in that way the name of the absentee be discovered. She knew the regulation every cadet was expected to obey and every officer on honor to enforce. She knew that every cadet found absent from his quarters after taps was called upon by the commandant for prompt account of his whereabouts, and if unable to say that he was on cadet limits during the period of his absence, dismissal stared him in the face.
The colonel did most of the talking on the way back to the south gate. Once within the portals he called to the driver to stop at the Mess. “I’m thirsty,” said the jovial warrior, “and I want a julep and a fresh cigar. You, too, might have a claret punch, Mimi; you are drooping a little to-night. What is it, daughter,–tired?”
“Yes, tired and a little headachy.” Then sudden thought occurs to her. “If you don’t mind I think I will go right on to the hotel. Then you and Mr. Lee can enjoy your cigars at leisure.” She knows well that Romney Lee is just the last man to let her drive on unescorted. She can hold him ten or fifteen minutes, at least, and by that time if the reckless boy down the road has taken warning and scurried back he can reach the barracks before inspection is made.