Yearling Camp was wonderfully unlike the dreary pleb camp of a year ago. The special hazers, drill masters, and tormentors of last year were gone away on furlough, or gone for good, and there was a new first class to take the lead. And if everyone was sorry to lose Mr. Upright, "many a dry eye followed" Mr. Devlin and Mr. Prank.

Now the yearlings threw off their reserve, came out of hiding, and were introduced to the ladies. Some wore chevrons, some were drill masters, some frequented the hops, and almost all of them learned to play the cavalier and to win fair companions for walks before breakfast and after drill; for band practice, for band concert, and the delightful wanderings on O. G. P. The long winter months of work were in the dim distance, the next big milestone was marked furlough, and at hand were summer and the summer girl. Sisters came, and cousins; introductions were many, flirtations not a few.

"It's the most delicious place!" cried Nina Dangleum one day. "You are always falling in love, and it never comes to anything."

It was not to be supposed that amid such breezes Magnus Kindred could keep himself unfanned. To give him his due, he had no particular taste for flirting, and did not often mean it; he was too earnest a fellow to like half-way measures, or to go into anything only skin-deep. And I think his own blessed cluster of womankind at home had set the standard too high for him to enjoy drawing a girl on to be silly, even if it was amusing to see. He had also not much taste for talking unmitigated stuff, or much knack at doing it, and at this time of his existence would have nearly endorsed Mr. Weller's words:

"Wot's the use o' calling a young 'ooman a Wenus? Just as well call her a griffin, or a king's arms."

But the gales that stirred about West Point just then were very perfume-laden; and almost any woman might seem like an angel, when you first come out of the double shadow of pleb year and barracks, where tactical officers were your chief glimpses of the outside world.

The soft, "Mr. Kindred, I saw you coming clear across the plain," smoothed down very pleasantly the plumage which had been so roughly stroked the wrong way. The "Tac" might have reported those very bell buttons that very day as in need of rubbing up; but if Miss Flyaway could see them as soon as the man left camp, you perceive it took off the effect.

In matters of discipline, however, and of military precision Magnus was, on the whole, a careful fellow (Rig spelled it "lucky"), and so when other men had their freedom tied up, he was often detailed to walk with the friend or the cousin and give her "a good time." Thus he came in for rather more than his share of sweets.

It was charming to wander almost anywhere in those fair days, and well nigh as good to lie in the shadow of the trees about Fort Clinton, with a book or without. The "without" was Rig's style.

"Kin—I'm no end comfortable!" he declared one day, lying back on the green with his arms above his head.

"Same at same," responded Magnus, from behind his home newspaper. Rig suddenly sat up. "Say, Kin, I want to go to artillery drill to-morrow night as chief of caissons."

"All right. If you're detailed for guard, shall I take the girl?"

"Steady!"

But after all, so it fell out; and when the Band concert began, Magnus escorted Miss Dangleum through the shadows to where the light battery guns stood ready, helped her to mount a caisson, and was in close attendance till the drum beat. One of these old caissons was quite a favourite "box" with the girls.

"Beastly!" Rig declared it all, when he came off guard next day.

"I saw him having the spooniest sort of a time," said Randolph maliciously. "Chappy and the Kitten were on the next gun. I say, I'm tired walking post. I'm going to bone colours."

"Go in and win," Magnus admonished him.

"Well, you'll see," said Randolph. And to be sure, such a polishing of buttons, and rubbing up of arms, as followed were unknown before in Randolph's tent. Magnus declared that the buttons made him wink clear across A Company Street.

Just at the last possible moment before the critical guard-mounting, Randolph rushed in upon his two friends.

"Say, boys, lend me a pair of white trousers. I can't find any of mine that are fit to go with my buttons."

"Well, I've only one pair fit to go with mine," said Magnus. "Sorry! but they'd be too long for you."

"Rig's will do," said Randolph, making a dash at the pile of trousers. "Thanks awfully. My, how they shine!"

Well, they certainly did. Spotless, unwrinkled, as if they, too, had been "boning" colours. Randolph marched out on higher heels than those prescribed in the regulations, and later on presented himself fearlessly as a candidate for honours. And the inspecting officer's face seemed to say he had reason; Randolph could see approval in every look and gesture. Gloves, buttons, gun were scrutinised; the trousers were dazzling and smooth. Then the officer passed round for a back view. Hair right length, collar right height above the grey, belt and buttons adjusted to a nicety.

"Mr. Randolph," said the cadet adjutant, as he came round in front, "I would have given you colours but for those trousers."

And when Randolph got in and scrutinised himself he found that the borrowed trousers were deeply frayed at the ankle! After which the young man professed himself blue and bored.

"Just my luck," he said. "But I'll get even with him, see if I don't. They were only fringed behind."

Two or three days after this, Randolph accosted Magnus.

"Say, Kin, want some fun? Like to see Coxy scared within an inch of his life?"

"No sort of objection on my part; rather B. J. in you to propose it."

"It's more than propose," said Randolph. "Just you hang round my tent about nine o'clock."

Then after supper Randolph took his stand at the foot of A Company Street, where the plebs were busily going back and forth between the hydrant and the tents.

"Mr. Johnson!" he said, hailing a D Company pleb, but keeping his voice well down.

"Yes, sir."

The pleb slackened his pace a little, but did not look round, and Randolph stood glancing carelessly about, as if thinking of nothing in particular.

"When you have carried in that pail come at once to the darkened tent at the head of the street."

"Yes, sir." "What is your name, sir?" to another.

"Mr. Ummerstot, sir."

"Mr. Upstart! I would like to know, Mr. Upstart, if you have no superior whose pail needs tilling as well as your own? Go home at once, and then report at my tent. The one with no light in it."

"Yes, sir."

When six more were under orders, Randolph strolled back to the front of his tent, and as fast as the plebs came up, he passed them in. They might stand at ease, but must not talk above a whisper. When they were all in hiding, Randolph spoke through the closed door of the tent.

"Mr. Johnson!" in a low undertone.

"Yes, sir."

"Your special technical name for this evening is Hippotherium. Do you hive it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Upstart! Your special name till tattoo is Semnopithereus."

"Mr. Parboil!"

"Mr. Carboil, sir," said the poor pleb, with a mild preference for his own name.

"I said Parboil. Your name will be Cereopithereus. Mr. Cereopithereus, you are first cousin to Mr. Semnopithereus, and according to Darwin, you each bear the same relation to a man that a pleb does to his superiors."

So the eight names were given, and then Randolph began again:

"Mr. Ichthyosaurus, you and your fellow animals will answer to your special technical names at roll-call, by a growl. You, sir, are an extinct reptile. Did you ever hear an extinct reptile growl?"

"No, sir."

"You other animals, stop that unseemly snicker. Where have you lived, sir, all your life to know so little?" "In Massachusetts, sir."

"The very headquarters of fossil life. Well, sir, if you have any imagination at all, growl as nearly as you can in the hypothetical voice of that extinct reptile called an Ichthyosaurus."

A low growl, ending in a suppressed chuckle.

"Order there, in the zoÖlogical museum! Mr. Hippotherium!" and another growl followed in a different key.

"How," said Randolph, when the roll had been gone through, "the countersign is: 'Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!' Do you understand?"

The painful general growl that answered him was cut short by a smothered laugh.

"Attention! When you hear the countersign and see the tent flap lifted you are to growl all together, with your deepest and heaviest roar."

A few minutes passed silently by. Randolph loitered about near the tent, as one might do who found the evening air refreshing. Then suddenly Adjutant Cox passed down the colour line.

"Say, Cox," Randolph hailed him, "come and see what I've got in my tent."

Thinking only of boodle, for which he had a soft spot, Mr. Cox came up, and pushed back the tent flap.

"Here comes the unsuspecting stranger!" cried Randolph, and from the darkness poured forth such a horrible and very prehistoric roar that the tall cadet made one spring across the company street, demanding in no gentle tones of Randolph "What on earth he had got there?" Then, "hiving" the joke, he walked rapidly away. Only one such roar could be risked, and after a little more hectoring the plebs were let out quietly one by one, and Randolph sought out Magnus and Rig to receive their compliments on his success.