The next morning passes were granted by wholesale, and every boy who was able to secure one started at once for the Indian camp, which was located in a deep ravine about a mile away. The young braves drove a thriving trade in bows and arrows, and earned a snug sum of pocket money by shooting dimes and quarters out of split sticks; while the squaws sold moccasins, beaded purses and miniature birch-bark canoes by the bushel. At one o’clock the big tent was again crowded with guests, and an hour later the Indian warriors, who were all armed and freshly painted, filed silently into the works. The entertainment that followed, and which was much better than some the boys had paid twenty-five cents to witness, included the corn-dance, hunting-dance, war-dance and a scalping scene. By the time it was ended dinner had been served in the big tent. After the dancers had done full justice to it, and had exchanged courtesies with their late antagonists by giving an ear-splitting war-whoop in return for their three cheers and a tiger, they filed out of the works as silently as they had come into them, and the students once more settled down to business.
There were no more desertions after that. Some of their friends came to see them every day, and as there were many veterans among them who watched their movements with a critical eye, of course the boys were careful to perform all their duties in a prompt and soldier-like manner. In due time the camp was broken and the students marched back to the academy, which during their absence had been thoroughly renovated. The examination was held, the members of the first class received their degrees and new officers were appointed for the coming year. Among the latter were Bert Gordon and Sam Arkwright—the former being made first sergeant of the fourth company, which was yet to be organized, and the other receiving a warrant as second corporal. Don Gordon stood head and shoulders above everybody in his class, and the only thing that prevented him from being commissioned lieutenant of the new company was his record as a soldier, which, as we know, was by no means perfect.
Contrary to Dick Henderson’s prediction, the school had not been disgraced by the presence of the New York boot-black. Its popularity seemed to be increasing, for the number of those who applied for admission was greater than it had ever been before; and when the examination was over, Bert found that he had a hundred and ten names on his company roster. Dick would not have made such a prediction now, for he was different in every way from the boy we introduced to the reader at the beginning of this story. Having got out from under Clarence Duncan’s baneful influence, and having Don Gordon’s example and Tom Fisher’s to encourage him, he was in a fair way to make a man of himself.
At length the exercises were all ended, and one bright morning Hopkins, Egan and Curtis took leave of their friends, and in company with Don and Bert Gordon and their parents, set out for Rochdale. They went fully prepared to enjoy themselves. As soon as it was settled that they were to go home with the Gordons, they had written for their hunting rigs, which were duly forwarded to them. Walter Curtis’s favorite, in fact his only, weapon, was a light Stevens rifle, with which he had broken twenty-three out of twenty-five feather-filled glass balls thrown from a revolving trap. Hopkins took pride in a short double-barrel shotgun, of large calibre, that he had often used on horseback while following deer and foxes to the music of the hounds; while Egan, who lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where canvas-backs and red-heads abound, put all his faith in a ponderous ten-gauge Parker, which was so heavy that Don Gordon, strong and enduring as he was, declared that he wouldn’t carry it all day through the woods if his friend Egan would make him a present of it.
“Neither would I,” chimed in Hopkins.
“You!” exclaimed Egan, standing off and looking at the speaker’s rotund figure. “You’d look nice starting out for an all-day tramp, you would. Your legs are too short, and you carry too much weight around with you. You would get out of breath before you had gone half a mile. But as I am not going to Mississippi after squirrels, I don’t intend to tramp about the woods. Gordon promised me some duck-shooting.”
“As for myself,” Curtis remarked, “I always did despise a scatter-gun. A blind man ought to be able to hit a duck by sending a pound or two of shot at him——”
“Well, it’s not so easy, either,” interrupted Egan. “A duck, when flying down wind, moves at the rate of ninety miles an hour, old fellow, and it takes the best kind of a marksman to make a good bag.”
“A true sportsman never prides himself upon the number of birds he kills, but upon the superiority of his shots,” said Curtis. “When you can strike a rapidly moving object with a single ball from a rifle, then you can boast of your skill.”
During the journey down the Mississippi the boys were on deck almost all the time, listening to Don, who pointed out the various places of interest along the route, adding some entertaining scraps of the history of each. Over there, on the right bank, he said, was the battle-field of Belmont; and on the opposite shore was Columbus, from which came the Confederate reinforcements that had turned the Union victory into defeat. This was Island No. 10, where the gunboat Cincinnati distinguished herself by running the batteries, and a young master’s mate, afterward the brave commander of the Champion, won his shoulder-straps by going ashore with a boat’s crew, spiking some of the guns, and bringing off the wipers and spongers that belonged to them. Over there on the bluff was Fort Pillow, where that terrible massacre took place under Forrest; and this was Memphis, the scene of the fight between the Union and Confederate fleets, which resulted in the utter defeat of the latter, and in the capture of the Bragg, Price, and Little Rebel. This was Yazoo river. It was here that the Confederate ram Arkansas, after eluding the Cincinnati and whipping the Tyler, ran the fire of the whole Union fleet and took refuge under the guns of Vicksburg. Having been repaired she started down the river to raise the siege of Port Hudson, but was met and destroyed by a single Union gunboat, the Essex, under command of Captain Porter. And here was Rochdale at last. It had a history too, Don said, and he promised that he would relate it when they reached the shooting-box.