“Deserter!” echoed Don, growing more and more interested.
“Yes. You see, we want to do things here just as they are done in a regular camp, and there is much more fun in working up a case against a real culprit, who will try by every means in his power to hide his guilt, than there is in trumping up a charge against some innocent boy. I have deserted every time I have been in camp.”
“What did they do with you?”
“Nothing, for I got back before I was caught. If I had been captured by any of the scouting parties that were sent out in pursuit of me, I should have been court-martialed, and ordered to the guard-tent to await sentence. That’s the way they did with Hop, who was sentenced to be shot. But then he deserted when the camp was supposed to be surrounded by the enemy. Hop always was unlucky. He can’t do any mischief without being caught at it.”
“How did they carry out the sentence?” asked Don.
“They didn’t carry it out. They simply put him in the guard-tent, and about midnight the officer of the day came along and let him out; and that was the last of it. When the members of the Grand Army of the Republic hold their encampments, and capture a deserter or a spy, they go through all the forms—seating the prisoner blindfolded on a coffin and shooting at him with blank cartridges. But we don’t believe in that. It is almost too much like the reality. By the way, Gordon, that great European seven-elephant railroad show is advertised to pitch its tent in Bridgeport very shortly, and I should really like to see the man who turns a double somerset over three elephants and four camels; wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would, and I’ll go if you will. Shall we ask for a pass?”
“Certainly not, because we don’t intend to come back until we get ready. The boys all want to get out of the lines for exercise, and nothing would suit them better than tramping about the country in search of us.”
Just then the officer of the day appeared at the door of his tent and beckoned to the sergeant, who hurried away, leaving Don to himself. The latter wished most heartily that that great European seven-elephant railroad show had been billed to appear at Bridgeport that very night, for he was in just the right humor for an adventure. Like Egan, he had no taste for foraging. It is true that he had joined in raids upon melon-patches when they were closely guarded, and when he knew that speedy punishment would be visited upon him if he were discovered and captured, and he might, without a great deal of urging, have been induced to do the same thing over again, if there were any risk to be run; but the thought of plundering a good-natured farmer who would freely have given him all the melons he wanted, was not to be entertained for a moment. Desertion, as proposed by Egan, was, according to Don’s way of thinking, a more high-toned proceeding. Creeping unobserved past the sentries; visiting an entertainment that would doubtless be witnessed by a majority of the teachers, and fifty or perhaps a hundred of their school-fellows, all of whom would be glad to report them “just for the fun of the thing;” roaming about the country wherever their fancy led them; dodging the scouting parties that were sent in pursuit, and at last, when weary of their freedom, making their way back to camp and into their tents without being caught—there was something interesting and exciting in all this, and the longer Don thought of it the more he wished that the show would hasten its coming.
During the first two weeks the students were kept at work at something nearly all the time, and there were but few passes granted. Don and Egan were among those who were lucky enough to get out of the lines for an afternoon, and before they came back they had made arrangements for procuring citizen’s clothes in which to visit the show when it arrived. After that Don became more impatient and uneasy than ever, and proposed to his friend Egan that they should desert at once, and stay out until the show left town.