CHAPTER III
THE SCOUTING AUTO
Reveille sounded at five o'clock. There was plenty to be done before the war game actually began. There were plans to be laid, codes to be determined, umpires to be consulted as to vague and indefinite rules, and all sorts of little things that in a real war would have adjusted themselves. But the Scouts were well out of the excitement. They struck their tents and handed them over, neatly arranged, with all their bedding, to the men from the commissary department.
"Sleeping bags for us, after to-day," explained Durland. "That is, if we have to sleep in the open. Sometimes we'll get a barn or a hayrick, or even a bed in a farmhouse. We won't worry about all that. But we're not going to sit still, and we can't scout and carry tents and dunnage of that sort along. So I said I'd turn it all in."
Then the Troop waited, quietly, for the orders that seemed so slow in coming. But they came at last. A young officer rode up on a horse that was dripping wet.
"General Harkness's compliments, Captain," he said, saluting Durland, "and you will take your Troop at once to Bremerton, on the State line. You will make your headquarters there, where a field telegraph station has been established. Please hold your Scouts for the stroke of twelve, when they may cross the line. The line for five miles on each side of Bremerton is in your territory."
"My compliments to General Harkness, and we will start at once," replied Durland.
And a moment later they were on the hike. There was plenty of time, since Bremerton was less than three miles away, and it was scarcely seven o'clock, but it was cooler then than it would be later, and Durland was glad to get his Troop away from the bustle and apparent confusion of the camp where the Red army was beginning to move.
"Where are the divisional headquarters to be to-day?" Durland asked a hurrying staff officer who passed just then.