“Well, you may as well hand it over to some one else. You’re on guard duty. Blow the recall whistle in one hour!”
There was a scattering of boys in all directions: some to the woods, several to a flat-bottomed boat lying partly on the shore, and others to the cave, a low opening into a rocky bluff, celebrated mainly for its ever dripping water and its bottom of sticky clay mud.
Connie walked along toward the farmer’s house. The last look he gave Wart revealed the disappointed boy gazing over the river beyond. It was well for the sentinel that Connie did not hear his muttered comment.
“They ain’t nothin’ in my book ’bout guardin’ nothin’ where they ain’t nobody to do nothin’.”
When Connie returned, Wart was fast asleep, hunched up at the foot of a tree. His leader blew the return whistle.
“I reckon I dropped off in a kind o’ doze,” began the aroused boy.
“You did, for half an hour. You’ll carry the stew pan an’ the teakettle the rest o’ the day.”
“Who—?” began Wart in protest, his face reddening.
“You mean ‘who says so?’” interrupted Connie. “I do. Is that enough?”
“Yes, sir,” faltered Wart. “That’s enough.”