An officer under the ban of the “silence” may approach a gathering of a hundred or more cadets, all talking animatedly until they perceive his approach.  Then, all in an instant, they become mute.  The officer may remain in their neighborhood for an hour, yet, save upon an official matter, no cadet will speak until the officer has moved on.

This “silence” may be given an officer for a stated number of days, or it may be made permanent.  It has sometimes happened that an officer has been forced to ask a transfer from West Point to some other Army station, simply because he could not endure the “silence.”

Very rarely, indeed, the silence is given to a cadet; it is more especially applicable if he be a cadet officer who is in the habit of reporting his fellow classmen for what they may consider insufficient breaches of discipline.

The “cut” or “Coventry” is reserved for the cadet whom it is intended to drive from the Army altogether.  If a man at West Point is “sent to Coventry” by the whole corps, or as a result of class action, he will never be able to form friendships in the Army again, no matter how long he remains in the Army, or how hard he tries to fight the sentence down.

Cadet Jordan, as will have been noted, professed to be satisfied if the class voted a week’s “silence” to Dick Prescott, for Jordan believed that by this time the tantalized young cadet captain could be provoked into actions that would bring the imposition of the “long silence” of permanent Coventry.

At the end of the busy cadet day, when the two cadet battalions stood in formal array at dress parade, Cadet Adjutant Filson published the day’s orders.

One of these orders mentioned Jordan’s confinement to the company street, and added the further infliction of “punishment tours” to be walked every Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.

“Oh, well,” thought the culprit, savagely, “as I walk I can plan newer and newer things.  I’ll go into the Army, and you, Prescott, may become a freight clerk on a jerk-water railroad.”

Unknown to either Jordan or Prescott at that moment, other storm-clouds were gathering swiftly over the head of the popular young cadet captain.

CHAPTER III

Catching A man for breach of “Con.”

Lieutenant Denton was the tac. who served as O.C. during this tour of twenty-four hours.

A “tac.,” as has been explained in earlier volumes, is a Regular Army officer who is on duty in the department of tactics.  All of the tacs. are subordinates of the commandant of cadets, the latter officer being in charge of the discipline and tactical training of cadets.  Each tac. is, in turn, for a period of twenty-four hours, officer in charge, or “O.C.”

During the summer encampment of the cadets, the O.C. occupies a tent at headquarters, and is in command, under the commandant, of the camp.