"Which is the colonel?" he asked.
"Over there—near the gray horse."
"The one lighting a cigarette?" H. O. asked.
"Yes—but I say, kiddie, he won't stand any jaw. There's not an ounce of vice about him, but he's peppery. He might kick out. You'd better bunk."
"Better what?" asked H. O.
"Bunk, bottle, scoot, skip, vanish, exit," said the soldier.
"That's what you'd do when the fighting begins," said H. O. He is often rude like that—but it was what we all thought, all the same. The soldier only laughed.
A spirited but hasty altercation among ourselves in whispers ended in our allowing Alice to be the one to speak to the colonel. It was she who wanted to. "However peppery he is he won't kick a girl," she said, and perhaps this was true.
But of course we all went with her. So there were six of us to stand in front of the colonel. And as we went along we agreed that we would salute him on the word three. So when we got near, Dick said, "One, two, three," and we all saluted very well—except H. O., who chose that minute to trip over a rifle a soldier had left lying about, and was only saved from falling by a man in a cocked hat who caught him deftly by the back of his jacket and stood him up on his legs.
"Let go, can't you," said H. O. "Are you the general?"