That was a very unusual procedure; the appearance of the cadets was very unusual, too. Their handsome dress uniforms were nowhere to be seen. They wore their fatigue dress, even the officers; the plebes, or fourth classmen, had their close-fitting shell jackets and gray trousers. Each cadet, be he plebe or otherwise, had a heavy knapsack strapped to his shoulder, and also his share of a “shelter tent.” Thus equipped and with glistening rifles in hand, they were turning their backs upon the silent camp.
It seemed as if all the visitors on the post had turned out to see them march. They crossed Trophy Point and started up the road to the north, between two lines of cheering spectators, waving handkerchiefs and calling, “Good-by!” A few minutes later the last line had swung around the turn and the post was silent and deserted.
Where were they going, you ask?
There is no very great mystery about it; the corps was on its way to Camp Lookout, in the mountains. That move is one of the events of the summer season to the cadets, for then they play “real soldier.” They go into “rough camp,” or bivouac, and altogether have quite an exciting time indeed.
That morning they had visited the trunk room and stowed away all their belongings—dress coats and hats, white trousers and so on. And now they were marching with nothing but knapsack and tent into the woods. The band was in front, and behind a big mule wagon with camp utensils. Getting through the mountain forest in that order was quite an interesting task indeed.
One may readily imagine that the novices who had never taken part in such an adventure as this before were head over heels with excitement, figuratively speaking. One might look forward to any amount of fun during the ten days that were to follow. Our friends, “the Banded Seven,” were fairly ready to dance for joy.
When the battalion once got fairly into the woods it was found that a regular order could not be maintained. The band gave up playing then and a loose order of marching was adopted. That enabled the Seven to get together in the rear, where they fell to discussing the prospect.
“There’s one good thing,” Mark said, after they had been wondering if there was any prospect of meeting bears or wildcats by way of excitement, “we’ll have a great deal more liberty. There won’t be any delinquency book.”
“Good!” growled Texas. “Who told you so?”
“Everybody,” responded Mark. “We’re going to live in army style, and they don’t have anything like that in the army.”