Dick Prescotts Third Year at West Point | Page 2

soldiers with him, under his command. I remember what a fine-looking young man he was. He had what looked like two V's on his sleeve, and I remember that they were yellow. What kind of an officer is the man who wears the two yellow V's?"
"A non-commissioned officer, Mrs. Davidson; a corporal of cavalry."
"Was he higher that you'll be when you graduate from West Point?"
"No; a corporal is an enlisted man, a step above the private soldier. The sergeant is also an enlisted man, and above the corporal. Above the sergeant comes the second lieutenant, who is the lowest-ranking commissioned officer."
"Oh, I am sure I never could understand it all," sighed Mrs. Davidson. "Why don't they have just plain soldiers and captains, and put the captains in a different color of uniform? Then ordinary people could comprehend something about the Army. But in describing that young soldier's uniform, I forgot something, Mr. Prescott. That young soldier, or officer, or whatever he was, beside the two yellow V's, had a white stripe near the hem of his cuff."
"Just one white stripe?" queried Dick.
"Just one, I am sure."
"Then that one white stripe would show that the corporal, before entering the cavalry, had served one complete enlistment in the infantry."
"Oh, this is simply incomprehensible!" cried the new pastor's wife in comical dismay. "I am certain that I could never learn to know all these things."
"It is a little confusing at first," smiled Dick's mother with another show of pride. "But I think I am beginning to understand quite a lot of it."
Mrs. Davidson went out of the bookstore conducted by Dick's parents in the little city of Gridley. Dick sighed a bit wearily.
"Why don't Americans take a little more pains to understand things American?" he asked his mother, with a comical smile. "People who would be ashamed not to know something about St. Peter's, at Rome, or the London Tower, are not quite sure what the purpose of the United States Military Academy is."
Yet, though some people annoyed him with their foolish questions, he was heartily glad to be back, for the summer, in the dear old home town. So was his chum, Greg Holmes, also a West Point cadet, and, like Prescott, a member of the new second class at the United States Military Academy. Both young men had now been in Gridley for forty-eight hours. They had met a host old-time friends, including nearly all of the High School students of former days.
Readers of "_Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point_" and of "_Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point_," are familiar with the careers of the two chums, Prescott and Holmes, at the United States Military Academy. The same readers are also familiar with the life at West Point of Bert Dodge, a former Gridley boy, but who had been appointed a cadet from another part of the state. Our old readers are aware of the fact that Dodge had been forced out of the Military Academy for dishonorable conduct; that it was the cadets, not the authorities, who had compelled his departure, and that Dodge resigned and left before the close of his second year.
Readers of these volumes of the _High School Boys' Series_ know all about Bert Dodge in the course of his career at Gridley High School. Dodge, back in the old days in Gridley, had been a persistent enemy of Dick & Co., as Prescott and his five chums had always been called in the High School. Of those five chums Greg, as is well known, was Dick's comrade at West Point. Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell were now midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Their adventures while learning to be United States Navel officers, are fully set forth in The Annapolis Series. Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton had chosen to go West, where they became civil engineers engaged in railway construction through the wild parts of the country, as fully set forth in the _Young Engineers' Series_.
Just after Mrs. Davidson left the bookstore there were no customers left, so Dick had a few moments in which to chat with his mother.
"What has become of the fellow Dodge?" asked the young West Pointer.
"Oh, haven't I told you?" asked his mother. A shade of annoyance crossed her face, for she well knew that it was Dodge who, while at West Point, had nearly succeeded in having her son dismissed from the Service on a charge of which Dodge, not Dick, was guilty.
"No, mother; and I haven't thought to ask."
"Bert Dodge is here in Gridley at present. The Dodge family are occupying their old home here for a part of the summer."
"Do people here understand that Dodge had to resign from West Point in order to escape a court-martial that would have bounced him out