"Sure thing," they assented, and accordingly made their way to a brightly lighted tent, toward which many others were going. They arrived there only a short time before the show was to start, and having secured good seats, settled down to enjoy it.
The scene of the picture was in the West, when it was still "wild and woolly," and depicted many encounters between settlers and Indians. These fights were the subject of much criticism by the expert audience, who did not hesitate to shout words of advice at critical situations.
"Gosh!" growled one doughboy, in deep disgust, "just one machine gun would have cleaned up that bunch of redskins in less time than it takes a Hun to say 'kamerad'"
"Yes, or a few good hand grenades would have done their business for them, too," said another. "It's too bad the old timers didn't have a few of those modern playthings along. It would have made things a whole lot easier for them."
"What would have been the matter with a few tankfuls of poison gas?" suggested Bart. "Seems to me that would have made them curl up and quit pretty quick."
There were other suggestions of the same nature, and when the picture finally came to a close there was a general impression that such warfare was mild indeed compared to that of the present day.
"I don't know how you fellows feel," remarked Frank, as they filed out of the tent and started for their barracks, "but I feel tired enough to crawl into my little two by four and get a real night's sleep."
"I'm with you," declared Tom. "I felt all right before, but that picture seems to have made me tired, because now it's all I can do to stay awake."
"I guess it must have been the picture all right," said Billy, "because certainly it isn't because of overwork."
"Well, I didn't claim it was from overwork, did I?" replied Tom. "I enlisted in the Army to fight Germans, not to work. All I've had to do is march twenty or thirty miles a day with a sixty pound pack on my back, but outside of that I must admit that I didn't do much work, except dig trenches, do sentry duty, and kill a few Huns as a sideline. It certainly is one grand picnic for me, I don't mind admitting."