"Mr. Prescott reports that two or more persons attempted to run across his post, sir. He overtook one, who stumbled. Mr. Prescott was guarding his prisoner as I arrived, sir, and that was the prisoner!"
Corporal Hasbrouck pointed in disdain at the stuffed figure that he had hauled out from under the bushes and Dick's bayonet.
"A stuffed figure, in gray trousers and shirt, eh?" questioned Captain Reynolds. "Sentry, were the two or three men who got away from you of the same composition?"
"I don't know, sir," Dick answered, with mortification. "All I know, sir, is that those who got away ran pretty fast, and made so little noise that they doubtless wore rubber-soled shoes."
"You've been hoaxed, sentry," commented the officer of the day dryly. "Corporal, have your men of the guard bring the prisoner up to the guard tent. Sentry, if any more straw men attempt to cross your post, bring them down as well as you did this one. The straw men who got away from you made their way into camp, didn't they?"
"Whoever escaped, sir, got into camp all right."
As the guard-house party returned, Dick resumed the pacing of number three. He felt his face still blazing, from the quiet ridicule of the officer of the day.
"I'll catch it to-morrow from everyone who thinks me worth noticing," growled the plebe to himself. "However, though I tried to do my full duty, I'm glad that was what I caught. I wouldn't care to march a comrade in, a prisoner."
When the midnight relief came around, and Prescott's relief was posted in his place, the young plebe knew the ordeal ahead of him.
As soon as the relieved squad was halted at the guard tent, and Dick entered to get himself a cup of coffee and a sandwich or two, his glance fell upon the stuffed figure, which reposed on the floor at the back of the tent as though it had been a veritable prisoner.