The Young Wild-Fowlers

by Harry Castlemon

All the exciting incidents connected with this particular class dinner were over at last, and it only remains for us to say nothing happened during the evening to mar their enjoyment, and that when they took the early train for Bridgeport, the students felt that they had done themselves credit. Blake was the hero, as he deserved to be, and he and his committee, as well as the boys who had gone down to Bordentown with them, were “toasted,” the tall student who had been so prompt to put himself in fighting trim, responding in a speech that set the tables in a roar. Everybody wondered what had become of Lester and his party, and how they were going to get back to the academy; but still they did not feel alarmed for their safety, for if they exhibited the same skill in eluding the firemen that they did in getting away with the dinner, they were sure to come off scot free. And they did, every one of them, although a few had some very narrow escapes. They succeeded in boarding a freight train which stopped at a water-tank about two miles above Bordentown, and arrived at Hamilton in time to take the two o’clock train for Bridgeport. When the first-class boys got there, they were all in their rooms under arrest, but sleeping soundly after the fatigue and excitement of the day. Their exploit was a nine days’ wonder, and there were those who were sorry that they did not eat the dinner after they had put themselves to so much trouble to get it. Lester Brigham got into a quarrel with Wallace Ross the minute he entered his room. Ross accused him of treachery, and threatened to go before the court-martial and tell all he knew.

“Go ahead, if you think you can make anything by it,” said Lester, as he tumbled into bed. “But if you know when you are well off, you will keep a still tongue in your head. No one outside the crowd knows that you had anything to do with it, and they never will know it either, unless you choose to tell it. But I did hear that the train was behind time. If you don’t believe it, ask Enoch.”

The court-martial did just what Forester said it would do. The judge-advocate could not make the law cover the case, and all he could do was to prosecute the conspirators for stretching their passes—that is, for going to Hamilton and Bordentown when they ought not to have gone any farther than the village. Lester and Enoch received the heaviest sentences, losing all their credit marks and being gated for sixty days; but they did not seem to mind it very much, for were they not looked up to as the originator and manager of two of the most daring conspiracies that had ever been concocted within the walls of that academy? It had the effect of putting the students on the alert, and from that time forward it would have been impossible for anybody to interfere with a class dinner.

After the court-martial adjourned nothing happened to relieve the monotony of the academy routine. The first-class boys felt so very bitter against Lester and Enoch that they would not speak to them except when they were on duty and could not help it (they knew that they gave the former more credit than he deserved), but they were much too honorable to take revenge upon them, as they could have done had they been so disposed. On the contrary, Colonel Mack, for fear of being considered vindictive, more than once overlooked offenses which he ought to have reported, and the teachers knew it and took him sharply to task for his neglect. This won him the good will of all except the very meanest of Lester’s followers, who would have reported him in a moment if they had had the chance to do it.

That was a long term to some of the students, but the end came in due time, the encampment was over, the visitors had gone to their homes, and the much-dreaded examination was a thing of the past. The result was what everybody thought it would be, so far as two boys were concerned. When Colonel Mack took off his shoulder-straps Don Gordon put them on, and Bert was promoted to a captaincy. Enoch, Lester, and Jones did not get even a corporal’s chevrons, and although they could blame no one but themselves for it, they had a good deal to say about favoritism, and Lester hated Don Gordon more cordially than ever.

“I don’t suppose that he and Bert will speak to anybody now who is lower in the social scale than a Congressman,” said Lester, in a tone of contempt. “I wish I could think up some way to get those straps off their shoulders.”

“Well, you can’t,” replied Enoch. “Don is so far above you in rank that you can’t hurt him; but we can see to it that he and Bert don’t get any sport while they are down on the Chesapeake, and we will, too. We can do just as much damage as we please, and it will all be laid to the big-gunners, who don’t like Egan any better than I do. He informed on some of them, and got them into trouble with the detectives. I am well acquainted with two or three of those poachers, and I wouldn’t have them get down on me for any money.”

Don and Bert had looked forward to this vacation with many anticipations of pleasure. They had never seen salt water, and everything in Maryland would possess for them the same charm of novelty as the sights they saw in Maine and the sports they enjoyed while they were visiting there. In order that they might see all the pleasure there was in shooting canvas-backs, General Gordon, who was greatly pleased with the progress they had made during the term, had presented each of the boys with a breech-loading duck-gun, full choked, and warranted to kill at seventy-five yards. All the students who knew anything about guns, said they were beauties, and although Bert looked rather small for so heavy a weapon, his gymnastic training enabled him to handle it with all ease.

The examination over and the result announced, Egan, Hopkins, Curtis and all the other boys who had taken the finishing course, bade a long farewell to their alma mater. Never again would they enter its hallowed precincts as pupils. Their career as students was over, and they were about to go out into the world to begin the battle of life. There were few dry eyes among them when the parting time came, and there was not one of them who did not wish, with his whole soul, that he had worked harder to make his record such as he knew the superintendent would have desired it to be. The latter, although a strict disciplinarian, was a big-hearted man, who took the deepest interest in the welfare of all his pupils, and the words of advice he uttered as he shook their hands for the last time, were full of wisdom.

The first southward bound train that left Bridgeport took our five friends with it. Their destination was Hillsboro’, a little town in Garrett county, in the extreme western end of Maryland, next to West Virginia. It was here that Hopkins lived, in a country famed for its game, and for the number and fighting qualities of its trout. Curtis had an idea that trout did not amount to much outside of Maine; but after he had broken his fine lance-wood rod in a battle with a Blackwater fish, he was obliged to acknowledge his error.