"And now he knows the army!" The officer spoke eagerly. "The service is stronger than the individual. It will grip him. If we can arouse his ambition—"
"It won't help to make mistakes, sir. To-morrow Private Newton Spooner becomes a menace to your life. Until midnight to-night you are safe."
For a while there was silence, then Major Falkins took up his pen again.
"Sergeant," he said, "to-morrow morning after inspection send Private Spooner to my tent."
"Yes, sir." The Deacon saluted, turned with the precision of an automaton and left the place.
Immediately after inspection on the next morning, a private appeared at the fly on Major Falkins' tent. The private was of course unarmed. His top-sergeant had seen to that, even though the soldier had surreptitiously sought to slip a revolver inside his army shirt.
As Newt Spooner presented himself, Henry Falkins was sitting on the edge of his cot. He was already in dress-uniform for the parade, and wore side arms. He glanced up, and nothing in the demeanor of the private escaped him.
For Newt stood at the tent-opening, as white as a ghost, and, despite his lately learned military bearing, there was the hint of a tremor through his entire body. It was evident that last night had brought little sleep to the eyes of this man. His hands were tight-clenched at his trouser seams, and deep back in his eyes burned a fire that was hardly sane. Yet Major Falkins was in part right. The sinew of the service is stronger than its atoms, and, as Private Spooner of B Company waited with clenched teeth, his hand rose automatically, though rigidly, in the prescribed salute.
"The first sergeant ordered me to report to ye," he announced in a queerly strained voice. At the "sir" he balked, but the officer was not inclined to quarrel over such details. He knew that however insane and morbid was the fixed idea in the soldier's mind, it was to himself a thing of ghastly reality.