“I am,” answered Don.
“Well, say one o’clock, then. I shall be busy with my reports until——”
“Why, man alive,” interrupted Don, “are we going to run the guard in broad daylight?”
“How in the world are we going to help it?” demanded Egan, in reply.[reply.]
“We ought to have gone out last night when we would have had the darkness to aid us,” said Don, who began to think that his chances for seeing that wonderful leaper were very slim indeed.
“I couldn’t have gone last night, for I was busy; and, as I told you, I don’t want to be out of camp when my class is under instruction. I shall be busy until about one o’clock; but after my work is done, I am going to that show. Are you going with me?”
Don answered, very decidedly, that he was.
“I don’t deny that we shall have a tight squeak for it,” continued the sergeant, pulling off his cap and scratching his head in deep perplexity. “You see, there used to be a little ridge out there in the upper end of the camp, that ran close by the side of post No. 2. It was thickly lined with bushes, under cover of which a fellow who was at all cautious in his movements, could creep by the sentry very easily; but when these earth-works were built that ridge was cut away, and I haven’t yet been able to decide how we are going to get out, although I have reconnoitered every part of the camp more than a dozen times.”
“Look here,” said Don. “Perhaps one of the sentries could be prevailed upon to keep his back turned when——”
“No, he couldn’t,” interrupted Egan, who knew very well what Don was about to say. “There isn’t a boy in camp who wouldn’t report his best friend, if he had the chance, just for the sake of getting a joke on him.”