“If this business doesn’t stop pretty soon,” Terry concluded the talk, “we won’t get enough sleep on this camping trip!”
5
A Fight and a Stampede
Captain Jim made his way around the last of the tents that formed the A Company row and then paused. With a motion that combined speed with caution he stepped out of sight behind the slope of the tent, his eyes narrowed, senses alert.
He was on his way to the section of the camp allotted to the cavalry horses. It was midafternoon and active drill was over for the day. Most of the young soldiers were in swimming, a few played baseball out in the blazing sun, and a few with less energy lay in the shade. Jim had dismounted rather hurriedly to make a report and he was on his way to see that the cadet orderlies had properly taken care of his horse.
The horses were just before him at the present moment, a score or more of restless, high-strung mounts. No orderly or cavalryman was with them at the moment and no one save one cadet could be seen. This cadet was acting queerly, and Jim’s attention was the more quickly attracted when he saw that the lone cadet was Dick Rowen.
Rowen’s campaign hat was in his crooked arm and he was standing directly in front of Jim’s horse, Squall. From time to time Rowen looked furtively around the camp to see if anyone was observing him, but he failed to see the cavalry captain. The lone cadet dipped his hand into the hat and extended something to the horse. Squall appeared to reach out eagerly for whatever it was each time, but the neck of another horse obscured from Jim what it was that Rowen was feeding his horse.
“Now, what the dickens can that fellow be doing?” Jim puzzled. “He seems to be unusually kind to my horse, and it looks suspicious to me. Of course, it is possible that Rowen likes horses and is feeding them, but he knows that one is mine. Maybe he doesn’t carry his grudges as far as the animals!”
One of the objects that Rowen was feeding to the horse dropped to the ground, rolling a short distance. As soon as Jim recognized it he became indignant.
“A green apple! A lot he knows about horses! If he wants to be kind to them he should pick something else beside—”
He stopped short in his thought. Rowen looked right and left again and then moved off a few paces to the left, reaching down for a bucket of water. With this in his hand he walked back to the horse, raised it to his eager lips, and tilted the bucket.