The canteens Overton threw over his shoulders, so that he had one on each side, in addition to his own, which hung at his left hip. The corporal's shoes he tied to his belt. It was the bunching of the four service rifles, with their weight of more than forty pounds, that gave him his real trouble. But at last he had the four pieces lashed together and started.
"I've yet got to look out that I don't run into any scouts of the enemy," thought the soldier boy half ruefully. "Whew, what a break it would be to be picked up with all this loot!"
It was a welcome sound indeed when, at last, the young scout heard, near the spot where he had left his own party, the almost whispered challenge:
"Halt! Who's there?"
"Friend," responded Hal Overton in a tone no louder.
"Halt where you are, friend, until a sentry advances to recognize you," returned cautious Corporal Cotter.
It was the corporal himself who came forward.
"Great Scott, Overton, what have you——"
"It's loot," returned Hal proudly.
"Where on earth did you——"