But whatever Hyman was going to do he did not explain, for the notes of assembly rang out and all the men in the squad room hastened outside, yet did it with that dignity and seeming deliberation that the soldier soon acquires.
Drill was over in something like an hour. Hal and Noll returned to squad room, where they spent some little time going over their equipment. Then they sauntered outside, for there was still some time before the noon meal at company mess.
"Look at Hyman, in that tree over yonder," said Hal, nodding in the direction.
Corporal Hyman was sitting on one of the lower limbs of a tree some four hundred yards away. It was close to the wall that ran along the front of the reservation, and overlooked the road that came up from the town of Clowdry.
"Yes," grinned Noll. "It's a favorite trick with old Hyman to get up in a tree like that. Says he can think better that way than when he's touching common earth. Hello, he has jumped down to the wall. There he goes into the road outside."
"There was a cloud of dust along the road. I guess he's talking to some one in a carriage or an automobile," guessed Hal.
"Well, it's of no interest to us," mused Noll.
But in that Corporal Terry was wrong.
"There's Hyman up on the wall again," reported Hal.
"So I see, and he's making motions this way."