Don Gordon's Shooting-Box, Harry Castlemon [first ebook reader .TXT] 📗

a regular camp, and there is much more fun in working up a case against a real culprit, who will try by every means in his power to hide his guilt, than there is in trumping up a 203charge against some innocent boy. I have deserted every time I have been in camp.”

“What did they do with you?”

“Nothing, for I got back before I was caught. If I had been captured by any of the scouting parties that were sent out in pursuit of me, I should have been court-martialed, and ordered to the guard-tent to await sentence. That’s the way they did with Hop, who was sentenced to be shot. But then he deserted when the camp was supposed to be surrounded by the enemy. Hop always was unlucky. He can’t do any mischief without being caught at it.”

“How did they carry out the sentence?” asked Don.

“They didn’t carry it out. They simply put him in the guard-tent, and about midnight the officer of the day came along and let him out; and that was the last of it. When the members of the Grand Army of the Republic hold their encampments, and capture a deserter or a spy, they go through all the forms—seating the prisoner blindfolded on a coffin and shooting at him with blank cartridges. But we don’t believe in that. It is almost too much like the reality. By 204the way, Gordon, that great European seven-elephant railroad show is advertised to pitch its tent in Bridgeport very shortly, and I should really like to see the man who turns a double somerset over three elephants and four camels; wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would, and I’ll go if you will. Shall we ask for a pass?”

“Certainly not, because we don’t intend to come back until we get ready. The boys all want to get out of the lines for exercise, and nothing would suit them better than tramping about the country in search of us.”

Just then the officer of the day appeared at the door of his tent and beckoned to the sergeant, who hurried away, leaving Don to himself. The latter wished most heartily that that great European seven-elephant railroad show had been billed to appear at Bridgeport that very night, for he was in just the right humor for an adventure. Like Egan, he had no taste for foraging. It is true that he had joined in raids upon melon-patches when they were closely guarded, and when he knew that speedy punishment would be visited upon him if he were discovered and captured, and 205he might, without a great deal of urging, have been induced to do the same thing over again, if there were any risk to be run; but the thought of plundering a good-natured farmer who would freely have given him all the melons he wanted, was not to be entertained for a moment. Desertion, as proposed by Egan, was, according to Don’s way of thinking, a more high-toned proceeding. Creeping unobserved past the sentries; visiting an entertainment that would doubtless be witnessed by a majority of the teachers, and fifty or perhaps a hundred of their school-fellows, all of whom would be glad to report them “just for the fun of the thing;” roaming about the country wherever their fancy led them; dodging the scouting parties that were sent in pursuit, and at last, when weary of their freedom, making their way back to camp and into their tents without being caught—there was something interesting and exciting in all this, and the longer Don thought of it the more he wished that the show would hasten its coming.

During the first two weeks the students were kept at work at something nearly all the time, and there were but few passes granted. Don and 206Egan were among those who were lucky enough to get out of the lines for an afternoon, and before they came back they had made arrangements for procuring citizen’s clothes in which to visit the show when it arrived. After that Don became more impatient and uneasy than ever, and proposed to his friend Egan that they should desert at once, and stay out until the show left town.

“Oh, that would never do,” was the sergeant’s reply. “We want to absent ourselves only on our ‘off’ days—that is, on days when there is no work to be done in surveying, or in artillery and rifle-practice. You know I am to complete the course this year, and as I want to pass a good examination, I must be on hand to receive all the practical instruction I can. I wouldn’t like to miss that.”

“But we don’t seem to have any ‘off’ days,” answered Don. “We are kept busy all the time. What’s the use of surrounding the camp with these rifle-pits?”

“There are two reasons for it. In the first place, the enemy may be hovering around watching for a chance to make an attack upon us.”

Don laughed outright.

207“And in the next place, you want to learn just how to go to work to fortify a camp in case you should ever have command of one.”

“Which is not at all likely,” interrupted Don. “Why can’t the engineers stake out the works so that we could see the shape of them, and stop at that? I didn’t come here to handle picks and shovels for so many hours every day, and I don’t see any sense in it.”

Almost the first thing the superintendent did after the students were fairly settled in their new quarters, was to put the engineers at work laying out a very elaborate system of fortifications with which the entire camp was surrounded. The boys would have made no complaint if he had been satisfied with that; but he wasn’t. When the fortifications had been laid out, he detailed working-parties to build them, just as he would have done if the camp had been located in an enemy’s country. Such a thing had never been done before, and Don Gordon was not the only one who could not see any sense in it. At first the boys laughed at their sergeants and corporals, who urged them to greater exertions with their picks and shovels, assuring them at the same 208time that an attack might be expected at any moment, and finally they began to get angry with them; but the attack was made all the same.

But these days of toil were ended at last, and when the old soldiers who lived in Bridgeport came out and inspected the works, and declared with one voice that, in everything except extent, they were equal to any with which the Confederates had surrounded Vicksburg and Richmond, the boys felt that they were in some measure repaid for their labor. They made the most of the days of recreation that followed. Passes were freely granted, and every boy who went outside the lines made it a point to bring back something for his mess-table.

One day, while Don was lounging in his tent, Egan appeared at the door and beckoned him to come out. In one hand he carried a huge yellow poster, which he passed over to Don, with the request that the latter would read it at his leisure, and at the same time he held up the forefinger of the other hand as if he were listening to something. Don listened also, and presently the breeze bore to his ear the enlivening strains of martial music.

209“They’ve come,” said Egan, “and they are now making their street parade. Are you ready?”

“I am,” answered Don.

“Well, say one o’clock, then. I shall be busy with my reports until——”

“Why, man alive,” interrupted Don, “are we going to run the guard in broad daylight?”

“How in the world are we going to help it?” demanded Egan, in reply.reply.

“We ought to have gone out last night when we would have had the darkness to aid us,” said Don, who began to think that his chances for seeing that wonderful leaper were very slim indeed.

“I couldn’t have gone last night, for I was busy; and, as I told you, I don’t want to be out of camp when my class is under instruction. I shall be busy until about one o’clock; but after my work is done, I am going to that show. Are you going with me?”

Don answered, very decidedly, that he was.

“I don’t deny that we shall have a tight squeak for it,” continued the sergeant, pulling off his cap and scratching his head in deep perplexity. “You see, there used to be a little 210ridge out there in the upper end of the camp, that ran close by the side of post No. 2. It was thickly lined with bushes, under cover of which a fellow who was at all cautious in his movements, could creep by the sentry very easily; but when these earth-works were built that ridge was cut away, and I haven’t yet been able to decide how we are going to get out, although I have reconnoitered every part of the camp more than a dozen times.”

“Look here,” said Don. “Perhaps one of the sentries could be prevailed upon to keep his back turned when——”

“No, he couldn’t,” interrupted Egan, who knew very well what Don was about to say. “There isn’t a boy in camp who wouldn’t report his best friend, if he had the chance, just for the sake of getting a joke on him.”

Just then Hopkins and Curtis came hurrying by. Their faces wore a pleased expression, and each held in his hand a piece of paper which he flourished exultantly over his head.

“We’re going to see the elephants, and the lions, and tigers, and all the other things,” said Curtis. “I say, boys, if you want passes you’d 211better not be standing here. The fellows are packed around the superintendent’s marquée as closely as sardines in a box.”

Don and Egan replied that they had concluded not to ask for passes on that particular day, and Hopkins and his friend hurried on to their tents to exchange their fatigue suits for their dress uniforms.

“I haven’t yet been able to decide how we are going to get out,” repeated the sergeant, when he and Don were left alone, “but don’t you worry about that. I’ll hit upon something before the time for action arrives.”

“All right,” replied Don. “I’ll be ready when you want me.”

Egan turned toward his tent, and Don went back into his. He spent the time until dinner in reading the poster the sergeant had given him, hundreds of which had that morning been distributed about the camp by village boys who were hired for that purpose, and then he made his toilet and waited for the hands on his watch to travel around to one o’clock. They had scarcely got there before Sergeant Egan put in an appearance, carrying in his hand a small tin pail. 212He seemed somewhat disconcerted when he looked into Don’s tent, for it was full of boys.

“Come in, sergeant,” said Bert, pleasantly.

“Where are you going?” inquired Don. “To the spring after some fresh water, I suppose. Hold on till I get a bucket, and I will go with you.”

“So will I,” said Bert.

That wouldn’t do at all. The sergeant looked perplexed, but Don was equal to the emergency.

“Bert,” said he, “you stay here till I come back, and I will have something to tell you.”

The confiding Bert was good-natured enough to submit without any argument, and Don, having secured a bucket, walked off with the sergeant. To his great surprise Egan led the way directly to the principal gate, and the sentry who was on duty there allowed them to pass without a word of protest. He had no business to do it, and if they had exhibited the least timidity, or been at all uncertain in their movements, they would have been halted on the instant; but, as it was, their audacity carried them safely through. 213If Don had been alone he would have been stopped beyond a doubt; but the fact that he was in the company of a non-commissioned officer, who, however, had no more right to go outside the lines than a private had, disarmed the sentry of all suspicion.