Indian's post lay alongside the camp, but in his fright he did not recognize anything. All he knew was that it ran along a dark deserted path beneath trees that groaned and creaked in the moonlight. And Indian paced tremblingly up and down clutching his cold steel gun nervously, seeing an enemy in every waving shadow and in every tree stump, hearing one in every distant voice and tread, consoling his mind with visions of all sorts of horrors, wishing he had some one to talk to, and wondering if it were not almost ten o'clock and time for that other sentry to relieve him. The very clanking of his own bayonet scabbard made this bold young soldier jump.
This continued as the night wore on. Indian strode back and forth losing heart every moment, and beginning to believe that the relief guard had forgotten him. Tramp, tramp—and then suddenly he halted, his heart leaped up and began to thump in a frenzy. Could that be? Yes, surely it was! Some one was crossing his beat, stealing along in the moonlight!
Half mechanically, Indian obeyed his instructions, brought down his gun to the charge position and gave the challenge:
"Who goes there?"
The voice was so weak that Indian scarcely heard it. He stood trembling, to await the answer. When the answer came he was still more mystified.
"The Prince of Wales!" called the intruder.
The Prince of Wales? What on earth was he doing here? Poor Indian had received no instructions about the Prince of Wales. But he was given no time to find out, for a step way back at the other end of the post took him down there on the run, where in response to his second challenge the ghost of Horace Greeley made itself known. And scarcely had the ghost been warned away before the confused sentry had to rush back to the original place to find that the prince had given place to a band of Potawottamie squaws combined with Julius Caesar and the Second Continental Congress.
Indian of course should have summoned the corporal of the guard. But in the alarm he had forgotten everything except that he must challenge everybody he saw. The result was that the poor lad was kept flying up and down until nearly dead from exhaustion, challenging ghosts and colonels, armed parties, patrols, grand rounds, reliefs, and other things military and otherwise. Occasionally a "friend with the countersign" would hail, and then inform the rattled sentry that the countersign was "butter beans," or "Kalamazoo," or "kangaroo," or "any old thing you please," as one joker told him. Poor Indian was fast being reduced to a state of nervous prostration.
He was in this condition when the climax came. Hurrying down the path he was suddenly electrified to see a red can lying in the middle of the path. Staring out in great black letters that made the sentry gasp were the letters d-y-n-a-m-i-t-e! Indian started back in alarm. He saw a spark, as if from a fuse; and in an instant more before he had a chance to run, that can—which contained a firecracker—went up into the air with a terrific flash and roar.
That was the last straw for Joseph.