Don Gordon's Shooting-Box by Harry Castlemon (10 best novels of all time .TXT) 📕

“Squad, halt! No. 4.”

It was Thursday afternoon, and the relief was going its rounds. When his number was called Bert Gordon stepped forward, and holding his musket at “arms port,” prepared to receive the orders which the sentry whom he was about to relieve had to pass, while the two corporals stood by and listened.

“My instructions are to stop anybody who may attempt to go out of the lines without a pass, and to keep a good lookout for prowlers,” said the sentry.

“For prowlers!” echoed Bert. “What is the meaning of that order?”

“I give it up,” replied the sentry. “I pass the command to you just as it was given to me. If you see anybody prowling about on the other side of the creek, call the corporal.”

The sentry fell into place in the rear of the 238squad, and the relief passed on, leaving Bert alone on his post.

“Prowlers,” he repeated, over and over again. “I don’t understand it. Why should there be any more danger from prowlers now than at any other time? O!” he added, an idea suddenly occurring to him. “Perhaps they think that Don and Egan will try to work their way back to camp this afternoon. Well, if they do, they’ll not get by me.”

So saying, Bert settled his musket firmly on his shoulder and began pacing his beat, casting suspicious and searching glances now and then toward the bushes on the opposite side of the creek.

When Bert first learned that his brother and Egan had deserted the camp he was almost overwhelmed with surprise and mortification. He supposed they had committed a serious offence, one that would be sure to bring disgrace and punishment upon them, and took it so much to heart that the boys were obliged to explain matters to him. They assured him that the deserters had not lowered their standing or forfeited the good-will of the teachers, and that all they had 239to do to make heroes of themselves was to outrun or outwit the parties that were sent in pursuit of them, and make their way back to camp without being caught.

“They are heroes already,” said one of the students, with great enthusiasm, “for didn’t they swim the creek during their flight? That’s something that none of the fellows ever did before. I wish they might get back all right, but the superintendent has sent Mack after them, and he’s a bad one. He’s bound to catch them.”

This seemed to be the opinion of all the students; and consequently when Corporal Mack returned to camp and reported that he had found Don Gordon at the show disguised as a country boy, and had actually had his hand on his collar, and Don had broken away and beaten him in a fair race, notwithstanding the fact that he was incumbered by heavy boots that were many sizes too large for him—when the corporal reported all this, the boys were not a little surprised.

“It would have made you laugh to see him,” said the corporal, who had the greatest respect for the boy who had so neatly outwitted him. “He looked and acted so much like a born simpleton 240that I couldn’t make up my mind that it was Don Gordon until he revealed his identity by walking like a field-negro. Then I knew in a moment that he was the fellow I wanted, and I—well, I didn’t get him, but I would have got him if I hadn’t been recalled. He had a suit of Asa Peter’s clothes on, and I had Asa’s house guarded so that he couldn’t get his uniform.”

Why he had been recalled so soon, and at a time too when he had the deserters “just where he wanted them,” the corporal could not imagine; and neither could the rest of the students understand why their liberty had been stopped so suddenly. On the day following that on which the seven-elephant railroad show had pitched its tent in Bridgeport all passes had been refused, and since that time no one had been outside the gates except the mess-cooks. They were permitted to go to the spring three times every day, and they always went under guard too. Such a regulation had never been established before, and the students were at a loss to know the meaning of it.

“It’s all Gordon’s fault and Egan’s,” said one of the boys. “They have shown that a fellow can desert under the eye of a sentry, if he sees fit 241to do so, and the superintendent is afraid that some of us will follow their example. That’s the reason he sends a guard with the mess-cooks when they go to the spring after water.”

“There’s where you are mistaken,” said one of the first-class sergeants, in reply. “We are in the enemy’s country——”

The boys who were standing around laughed uproariously, and turning on their heels, walked away. They had heard quite enough of such talk as that, and wanted to know some good reason for the stopping of their liberty.

While Bert Gordon paced his beat on this particular afternoon, he kept one eye directed toward the bushes on the opposite side of the creek, and the other turned toward the camp. The huge tent that had been erected the day before for the accommodation of visitors, was already pretty well filled; and from his lofty perch on the embankment Bert could see his school-fellows strolling aboutabout in company with their parents, or with their brothers and sisters, who had come hundreds of miles to see the students in their summer quarters. Every now and then one of the village hacks would drive in at the south gate and deposit 242a load of ladies and gentlemen before the door of the superintendent’s marquee. Every train that steamed up to the station brought a fresh influx of visitors, and finally the camp began to present quite a holiday appearance.

“Don’t I wish that my father and mother were among them!” thought Bert, who began to feel lonely when he saw that almost every boy who was off duty had hastened to the tent to receive some relative or friend who had come there to see him. “If they didn’t live so far away they would certainly be here; but, as it is——”

Bert suddenly stopped, and shading his eyes with his hand, looked intently at something on the other side of the creek. He was certain that the bushes toward which he directed his gaze, were suddenly and violently agitated, as if some heavy body were working its way through them. A moment later something that looked like a head crowned with feathers was thrust cautiously into view; then a dark brown face appeared and a pair of glittering eyes looked straight at him.

“What in the world is that?” muttered Bert, after he had winked hard and looked again to 243make sure that he had not been deceived. “It can’t be a head, and yet—it is a head and nothing else. Corporal of the guard No. 4!”

The head, or whatever it was, bobbed down out of sight in an instant, and presently the corporal came hurrying up.

“There’s something or other over there in the bushes,” began Bert, in response to the non-commissioned officer’s inquiries.

“And it looked like a head with feathers on it, I suppose,” interrupted the corporal, with some impatience in his tones. “I don’t see what is the matter with everybody this afternoon. You are the third one who has called me out for nothing.”

“But I didn’t call you out for nothing,” protested Bert. “My eyes never went back on me yet, and I know that there is somebody over there in the bushes.”

“I don’t dispute that. It is probably your brother or Egan who is watching for a chance to creep by some of you sentries.”

“But they wouldn’t have feathers on their heads, would they?” demanded Bert.

“O, get out!” exclaimed the corporal. “You 244didn’t see any feathers. You only dreamed it.”

“Do you suppose that I have been asleep?” cried Bert.

“It looks like it, for I declare I don’t see how any boy who is wide awake—Well, well, have it your own way,” said the corporal, who noticed that Bert’s cheek began to flush and his eye to sparkle as if he were growing indignant. “Just keep your eye on him and see that he doesn’t get into camp; that’s all you’ve got to do. But I say, Gordon, we are in for a good time to-night, are we not? Did you ever see so many visitors before?”

“I never did,” answered Bert. “This is my first camp, you know.”

“Well, fellows who have been here during four camps say that they never saw such a crowd at this stage of the proceedings,” continued the corporal. “Our friends generally put in an appearance a day or two before we break camp, and stay with us during the examination and over commencement; and what it was that brought them here so early in the day this year, I can’t imagine. But we are glad to see them 245all the same, and we’re going to have a smashing hop to-night. Some of the fellows have sent to town for the music.”

“You didn’t hear anybody inquiring for me, did you?” asked Bert, with some hesitation.

“I did not. In fact, I didn’t hear anybody asked for. I took time to kiss my mother and say ‘hallo’ to my big brother, and that’s all the visiting I can do until I go off duty. Good-by, but don’t call me out to look at any more feathers unless you can show them to me.”

“I saw them, I know I did,” said Bert, to himself, as the sentry walked away. “No one can make me believe that I could be so badly fooled in broad daylight. I wish I could have another look at them.”

Once more Bert turned his eyes toward the opposite bank of the stream; but the head with the crown of feathers did not again show itself, and he finally resumed his walk, feeling very lonely and homesick. Almost every boy in camp had company—in fact he could not see a single student wandering about alone—but no one had been heard to ask for him. He would have been glad to see anybody from 246Rochdale. Even the sight of Dan Evans’s tan-colored face would have been most welcome.

Bert stood his time out without seeing anything more of the feathers, and finally the relief came around. Having stacked their muskets in the guard-tent the sentries, some of whom had received notice of the arrival of their friends, scattered in all directions, leaving Bert alone. He strolled slowly along the street, lifting his cap whenever he met a fellow-student accompanied by his mother or sister, and finally reached the door of his own tent, which was crowded with the relatives and friends of his mess-mates. He was about to pass on with a word of apology, when a lady, whom he did not see until that moment, arose from the camp-chair in which she was sitting, and a second later Bert was clasped in the arms of his mother. General Gordon was there, too. He had been visiting with his old friend and preceptor, the superintendent, and was now looking over the fortifications in company with Mr. Egan, Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Curtis, all of whom were veteran soldiers. He came into the 247tent in a few minutes, and when he had greeted Bert warmly, he asked for Don.

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t know where he is,” replied Bert, who then went on to give a hurried history of Don’s exploits at the show, as reported by Corporal Mack. Mrs. Gordon listened with a shade of anxiety on her face, but the general laughed heartily.

“Boys will be boys,” said he. “And so long as Don doesn’t break any of the rules of the school, or carry his fun too far, where is the harm? The superintendent thinks that he and Egan have played their parts as deserters very well, and I think so, too. I should like very much to see him, but I suppose I shall have to wait until he gets ready to come in.”

“You will not go home until you do see him, will you?” said Bert.

“O, no. We shall not return to Mississippi until you and Don can go with us, and then we shall have company. Young Egan, Hopkins, and Curtis are to spend a month at our house. I have just been talking with their fathers about it.”

Bert was delighted to hear that this matter 248had been definitely settled, and he wished that Don