Harry Castlemon

“ The next morning passes were granted by wholesale, and every boy who was able to secure one started at once for the Indian camp, which was located in a deep ravine about a mile away. The young braves drove a thriving trade in bows and arrows, and earned a snug sum of pocket money by shooting dimes and quarters out of split sticks; while the squaws sold moccasins, beaded purses and miniature birch-bark canoes by the bushel. At one o’clock the big tent was again crowded with guests, and an hour later the Indian warriors, who were all armed and freshly painted, filed silently into the works. ”

“ I am able to look out for myself. But I’ll tell you what’s a fact, Bert: I don’t think as much of this military business as I did a few weeks ago. If I were only back home with my pony, dogs and guns, I tell you I would stay there. I feel more like going out in the woods and knocking over a wild turkey than I do like sitting here in this gloomy room preparing for to-morrow’s recitations. ”

“ RUNNING THE GUARD. “Now, boys,” said Tom Fisher, “one at a time, but remember lively is the word. Gordon, you had better stay back and watch the rest of us, and then you will know how to proceed when your turn comes. We are not afraid of Henderson, but still we don’t want to show ourselves to him too plainly, for fear that the corporal of the guard or the officer of the day may be loafing around somewhere within sight of his post.” ”

“ It is doubtful if even the sharp eyes of Corporal Mack could have penetrated them. The boys looked for all the world like a couple of green country fellows who were out for a holiday; and when Don, after disarranging his hair, and assuming an expression of countenance that would have done credit to Mark Twain’s “Inspired Idiot,” walked across the floor after the manner of a plantation darkey, Egan, who never could control himself when he wanted to laugh, rolled on the bed convulsed with merriment. ”

“ There was just room enough left in the canoe to accommodate old Cuff, the negro who was to act as cook and camp-keeper during their sojourn at the shooting-box; and when all the boys and Don’s two pointers had crowded into the sail-boat, the little craft seemed on the point of sinking. As an Irishman would have remarked, if the water in the lake had been two inches higher, she would have gone to the bottom beyond a doubt.
“We’ve got about three hundred pounds too much cargo aboard,” said Curtis, in his quiet way. “Hop, suppose you get out and go afoot; there’s a good fellow.” ”

“ There is no one in the neighborhood who has warmer friends and more bitter enemies than I have. I know that my friends will stand by me in my trouble, but there are a good many in the settlement who will say that I wasn’t robbed at all—that I stole the mail and made up a story to cover my guilt. I am neither blind nor deaf, and I can put my hand on a dozen men and boys who are watching for a chance to throw me out of my position so that they can apply for it themselves. No one ever thought the mail-carrier’s berth was worth anything until I got it, and now everybody wants it. ”

“ I’ll send him to Bridgeport.”
“Do you think he can endure the discipline?” asked the anxious mother, who knew how easily Don could be governed by kindness, and how obstinate he was under harsh treatment.
“He’ll have to; it is just what he needs. After he has spent six hours in racking his brain over the hardest kind of problems in mathematics, and two hours and a half more in handling muskets and broadswords under the eye of a strict drillmaster, he will feel more like going to bed than he will like running the guard to eat Cony Ryan’s pancakes and drink his sour buttermilk. ”

“ THE MAIL-CARRIER IN TROUBLE. “Here, Dandy! Here Punch! To heel,” said Bert, as he and his four companions started down the shore of the lake in search of their supper.
“Why do you make the dogs go behind?” demanded Hopkins. “Why don’t you hie them on, and perhaps they will stand something for us. I should think this ought to be good quail ground.”
“So it is,” answered Bert. “And if you want a chance at some, we’ll——”
“No we won’t,” interrupted Egan. “If little birds are the height of Hop’s ambition, let him take the pointers some day and go off by himself. ”

“ Don could not see the necessity for such an order, so he waited for an opportunity to speak to Egan about it.
“It means,” said the latter, in response to Don’s inquiries, “that we mustn’t steal anything from the farmers hereabouts.”
“So I supposed. But who is there among us who would be mean enough to do such a thing?”
“I don’t know about it’s being mean,” replied the sergeant, in a tone of voice that made Don open his eyes. “We want something good to eat, don’t we?”
“Of course we do; but why can’t we buy what we want? We’ve all got a little pocket-money.” ”

“ You can see much more fun without a pass than you can with one, for you are not obliged to return at any specified time.”
“I don’t mind the punishment as much as I do the disgrace,” said Don.
“Disgrace!” echoed Fisher. “Nonsense. This has been a military school for half a century or more, and of the thousands of students who have been graduated here, there are not a hundred who did not, at some time or another, break some rule, and get punished for it. Why, my own father used to run the guard.” ”

“ Don wheeled as quick as thought, tore himself lose from the detaining hand and took to his heels, darting like a flash through the crowd of spectators who, astonished beyond measure to see the awkward clown, who had moved so slowly and painfully over the ground, suddenly transformed into a fleet-footed runner, parted right and left to give him room, and cheered him lustily as he passed through their ranks. Corporal Mack started in hot pursuit. His men, who had been stationed around the outside of the tent, drew in upon the fugitive from all sides ”

“ He’s a bully little scout, even if he did come near getting us all into trouble by halting Don Gordon. What is it this time, Dick?”
“We may as well follow your advice and throw away our keys, for they are of no use to us now,” was Dick’s reply. “The officer of the day goes up and tries those doors and examines the new fastenings as regularly as he makes his rounds.”
“There!” exclaimed Tom, in great disgust. “You see what Duncan has brought us to by being so smart. No more pancakes for us.” ”

“ Winter had passed, the snow had disappeared, the ice was all out of the river, the buds were starting on the maple trees, and those of the students who were ambitious to be something better than privates in their companies, were studying night and day to prepare themselves for the approaching examination. These found rest and recreation by whipping the neighboring brooks for trout on Saturday afternoon (you know it is time to begin trout-fishing when the maple buds start) , while Tom Fisher and his followers diverted themselves by running the guard as often as the opportunity was presented. ”

“ All the fun was over now so far as the show was concerned. His disguise being known, it would be dangerous for him to stay about the village, and the only thing he could do was to go back to the home of Asa Peters, where he hoped to find his friend Egan.
“I hope he wasn’t captured,” thought Don, “for I should find it very lonely roaming about the woods all by myself. Besides, I don’t know where those trout-streams are that he said would afford us so much sport. There’s one thing about it: I am out, and I shall not go back until I get ready.” ”

“ The incidents we have just described were by no means the only interesting or exciting ones that happened while Egan, Curtis and Hopkins remained at the shooting-box. The boys shot water-fowl until they were tired of the sport, and frequently entertained their friends, both male and female, who came over to see how they were getting on. They drove the ridges for deer, hunted wild turkeys and ate many a dinner of quails that Hopkins shot for them over Don Gordon’s pointers. ”

“ He listened with much interest while Cony told of the exploits of the students he had known in the years gone by, and who had since made themselves famous as lawyers, legislators and soldiers, and was greatly astonished when Tom Fisher jumped to his feet with his watch in his hand and a look of alarm on his face.
“Fellows,” said he, “where has the night gone? It is half-past three, and we have just 110half an hour in which to crawl by Dick Henderson’s post and get into bed. If we are two minutes behind time we are a gone community.” ”

“ I dare you.”
“It is a common saying in my country that a man who will take a dare will steal sheep,” said Don.
“Of course he will,” answered Clarence. “I knew we had not been mistaken in you.”
“We haven’t had any of Cony’s pies and pancakes this winter,” continued Tom, “and we are getting hungry for some. I have taken particular pains to find out who the sentries are, and I know that some of them are good men and true. There are some of our boys now. ”

“ Fred and Joe were warm friends of the Gordons, and they met his advances in so freezing a manner that Lester was highly enraged, and straightway set his wits at work to conjure up some plan for getting even with them. He wished for Bob Owens more than he had ever wished for him before (if Bob had been there he would not have joined him in any plan for mischief or revenge, for he was not that kind of a boy now) ”

“ If they succeed, they march us to camp, and all the boys laugh at us, and we have to fork over money enough to pay for the articles we took, whatever they are. But after all one don’t lose anything by it, for very likely that same farmer will meet you the next day and give you a peck of peaches, or an armful of green-corn or a water-melon as big as you can carry.”
Don began to understand the matter now, and to see why it was that the students looked forward to their month in camp with so much eagerness and impatience. ”

“ Two hours passed, and nothing had been seen of the flat-boat.
“I reckon we’ve missed her,” said the constable. “She has tied up to the bank somewhere, and we have run by her in the dark.”
“If that is the case, there is only one thing we can do,” said Don. “We’ll keep on down the river until day-light, and then we’ll come about and beat back again, making a close examination of each shore. She can’t escape us, unless she hauls into one of these little bayous and gets out of sight among the bushes.” ”

“ CONY RYAN’S PANCAKES. “He did bite, didn’t he?” said Duncan to himself, as he hurried about the grounds and through the academy building looking everywhere for Dick Henderson. “He jumped at the bait quicker than I thought he would; but he never would have done it if he had not got himself into trouble last night. That made him mad, and now he don’t much care what he does. We’ll fix him. A court-martial and extra lessons and guard duty and drills for a whole month will so disgust him with this school that he will clear out, and we shall be well rid of him.” ”

“ It soon became known to a certain class of boys that the Planter was a “brick,” who would rather get into trouble himself than report any of his schoolmates; and they were not slow to take advantage of his good-nature. That was the term the students applied to his neglect of duty; but the superintendent called it disobedience of orders, and Don was punished accordingly.
“What was that noise?” exclaimed Bert, suddenly. ”

“ Tom and his friends faced about at once, and the former stepped up to the speaker and laid his hand rather heavily on his shoulder.
“Look here, Plebe,” said he, in an insolent tone. “‘Subordination is of discipline the root; when you address an old cadet, forget not to salute.’ Mind that in future.”
“Take your hand off that boy, or I will salute you with a blow in the face that will bury you out of sight in that snowdrift,” said he who had been called the “Planter.”
“Who are you?” demanded Fisher. ”

“ Sometimes we spend an hour or two in skating or sleigh-riding, and when we get tired of that, we go down to Cony Ryan’s after pancakes and mince-pies.”
“I don’t, for the life of me, see how you can get out,” said Don. “There are sentries all around the grounds.”
“It does require some skill and cunning, that’s a fact, especially when fellows who don’t like you happen to be on duty. But if the members of your own set are on post, it is easy enough. All you have to do is to give them notice of your coming, and they will turn their backs until you can creep by them.” ”