To the Front: A Sequel to Cadet Days. Charles King

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       Charles King

      To the Front: A Sequel to Cadet Days

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066225957

Table of Contents

       ILLUSTRATIONS

       TO THE FRONT

       TO THE FRONT

       PRELUDE

       CHAPTER I ToC

       CHAPTER II ToC

       CHAPTER III ToC

       CHAPTER IV ToC

       CHAPTER V ToC

       CHAPTER VI ToC

       CHAPTER VII ToC

       CHAPTER VIII ToC

       CHAPTER IX ToC

       CHAPTER X ToC

       CHAPTER XI ToC

       CHAPTER XII ToC

       CHAPTER XIII ToC

       CHAPTER XIV ToC

       CHAPTER XV ToC

       CHAPTER XVI ToC

       CHAPTER XVII ToC

       CHAPTER XVIII ToC

ILLUSTRATIONS

       Table of Contents

The Opening of the Battle at Wounded Knee	Frontispiece
Cadets at Drill, West Point	Facing p. 14
"Big Ben was Busy with his Oil-Can"	84
"Not a Whiff of the Draught Could be Wasted"	102
Silver Shield	128
"'Straight Through The Herd, Men. CH-A-A-A-RGE!'"	236
United States Cavalry in Winter Rig	242
"Up Went two Little Puffs of Earth"	248

TO THE FRONT

       Table of Contents

TO THE FRONT

       Table of Contents

PRELUDE

       Table of Contents

      It was graduation day at West Point, and there had been a remarkable scene at the morning ceremonies. In the presence of the Board of Visitors, the full-uniformed officers of the academic and military staff, the august professors and their many assistants, scores of daintily dressed women and dozens of sober-garbed civilians, the assembled Corps of Cadets, in their gray and white, had risen as one man and cheered to the echo a soldierly young fellow, their "first captain," as he received his diploma and then turned to rejoin them. It was an unusual incident. Every man preceding had been applauded, some of them vehemently. Every man after him, and they were many, received his meed of greeting and congratulation, but the portion accorded Cadet Captain "Geordie" Graham, like that of Little Benjamin, exceeded all others, and a prominent banker and business man, visiting the Point for the first time, was moved to inquire why.

      "I think," said the officer addressed, a man of his own age, though his spare form and smooth-shaven cheek and chin made him look ten years younger—"I think it is that Graham has been tried in all manner of ways and has proved equal to every occasion. They say he's sheer grit."

      A keen and close observer was the banker—"a student of men," he called himself. He had been tried in many a way and proved equal to every occasion. He had risen from the ranks to the summit. He, too, they said in Chicago, was "sheer grit." Moreover, they did not say he had "made his pile out of others' losings"; but, like most men who have had to work hard to win it, until it began to come so fast that it made itself, John Bonner judged men very much by their power to earn money. Money was his standard, his measure of success.

      And this, perhaps, was why John Bonner could never understand his brother-in-law, the colonel, a most distinguished soldier, a modest and most enviable man.

      Twenty-five years had Bonner known that now gray-haired, gray-mustached veteran. Twenty-five years had he liked him, admired him, and much of late had he sought to know him, but Hazzard was a man he could not fathom.

      "Fifteen years ago," said he to a fellow-magnate,