And then the five figures disappeared once more in the darkness—the moon had kindly hidden for a while. Mark could see number two from his post, and he watched with the utmost eagerness. He saw three horrified yearlings dash across his own beat and vanish in their tents. He let them pass without challenge, even if it was against the orders, for he knew that they were the three unhappy heroes of the peroxide of hydrogen bottle, just released by the plebes.
After that there was a silence of perhaps five minutes. Mark, in disobedience of all orders, was actually standing still, peering across at the sentry on the next beat. He could see that gentleman's white "pants" shining out; and then suddenly he saw several dark figures steal up behind him, saw the sentry shoot up into the air and take a header to the grass. The next moment came rapid footfalls and some quick shadows flying across the path. The shadows disappeared in the tents and Camp McPherson was once more silent as the night.
Sentry number two got up from the ground in a meditative way; his look—though Mark did not see it—was what is often described as an injured one. He made no sound, because for one thing he was too surprised, and for another because he had an idea some of his own class had done that trick—mistaken him for Mallory! For though Bull Harris had watched long and anxiously he hadn't seen Mark "dumped."
Mark meanwhile had faced about and was strolling on down the path, a rather happy and satisfied expression upon his face. Tramp, tramp.
This chapter would not be complete without a word—just a word—about three yearling friends of ours. They woke up—if they slept at all that night—with three startling crops of beautiful golden shining hair, rather piebald in places. One likes to lavish adjectives upon that hair; the piebald is not meant to be a pun. Now, as to how that hair got dyed during the night, not a man of them would tell. But the Seven told Grace, of course; and Grace told the cadets, which amounted to the same thing in the end. The story was all about the post that morning.
By that time the three had been to the barber's and their heads looked like a wheat field, a field of golden grain after the reaping machine had been hauled across. But that didn't save the three. They were guyed unmercifully; one of them had three fights at Fort Clinton before he could convince his classmates that he really didn't want to be called "Peroxide."
CHAPTER X.
"TEXAS" RUNS AMUCK.
"Drunk! Drunk! For Heaven's sake what do you mean?"
Mark had been sitting in the door of a tent in "A" company street, vigorously polishing a musket. At the moment he had dropped the gun and the cleaning kit to the ground and was gazing in amazement at Indian, who had halted, breathless, in front of him.