"Very good, sir."
Both soldier boys saluted and stepped ahead. The wagons followed at once. The first time that Hal and Noll glanced backward they saw that Lieutenant Prescott was also on foot, walking beside the second wagon.
"I don't believe Lieutenant Prescott ever gives an order that he wouldn't want to follow himself," murmured Hal.
"He's the real thing in the soldier line," responded Noll.
"I imagine that that other new West Pointer, Holmes, is just as fine a soldier and officer," Hal continued.
"Very likely," admitted Noll. "I hear that they both came from the same home town, and that Prescott and Holmes were chums even years before they went to West Point."
To healthy young soldiers the walk, though over rough roads for most of the way, was no hardship. The wagon train reached camp later in the afternoon, just as the hard-working regulars in camp were coming back from drill in constructing trenches with revetments. These revetments are frames of one kind of wood or another, so built into the trench as to increase its stability greatly.
"You found that your task took longer than you expected, didn't you, Mr. Prescott?" was Captain Cortland's greeting when the young officer, saluting, came over to report.
"We would have gotten through much earlier, captain, but some of our time was taken up otherwise."
"How was that?"