A DISPUTE IN THE GUARD HOUSE
Of the ride that followed back to camp Hal Overton knew nothing.
Noll Terry sat beside him, supporting him.
Of course the automobile reached camp a long time ahead of the
detachment with prisoners.
Captain Cortland caught sight of the car and came hastening to meet it.
Noll Terry leaped out, saluting.
"Sir, I have to report that Corporal Minturn assaulted Private Overton,
and that we called in a physician, who has brought Overton out here."
"How badly is Overton hurt?" demanded the captain, hastening to the
side of the auto.
"Badly," replied the physician. "Have you any facilities here for
the care of a man who may have brain fever if he lives for the next
forty-eight hours?"
"We have a hospital steward and four hospital corps men," replied
Captain Cortland.
"And bandages and medicines?"
"An abundance of them."
"Then your soldier lad may have some show. He'll no doubt be better
off here than among strangers in town. When do you start back to your
post, Captain?"
"In the morning of the day after to-morrow," Cortland answered. "One
moment, please. Sergeant Gray!"
The first sergeant hurried up, saluting.
"Sergeant, send the hospital steward here. Then see that a hospital
tent is taken from one of the supply wagons and set up at once and make
the patient as comfortable as possible."
Within ten minutes the tent was up, with a cot, a table, two chairs,
bandages, medicine chest and other accessories.
Now, with the help of the steward, the physician gave the injured
soldier boy a very thorough examination, washed the gash carefully and
bandaged it.
Directions were left with the steward, who was a trained nurse, and
then the physician returned to town, after having been requested to
call again on the following day.
Hal Overton knew little, and that little in a dreamy, disorganized
way, even when his cot was carefully placed and secured in one of the
transport wagons for the return to Fort Clowdry.
The roughness of the first part of the ride brought on mild delirium.
Two days later, however, after being placed on a cot in the military
hospital at Fort Clowdry, Soldier Hal opened his eyes with a keener
realization of the world about him.
"How do you feel, Overton?" asked one of the hospital corps men,
bending over him.
"Like a fool," sighed Hal.
"Why?"
"A youngster like me has no business wasting time in hospital. Can I
get out to-day?"
"I'm afraid not," smiled the hospital corps man.
"I'm not badly hurt, am I?"
"If the rainmaker knows his business, you've had a fight for your life,
and youth and a good constitution have won out."
"How long am I to be here?"
"You'll be here for three or four days yet," answered the hospital
corps man.
"But----"
"That's about all the talking you'd better try to do until the
rainmaker has seen you," interposed the hospital corps man, and moved
away as he added:
"Either sleep, or just keep quiet."
But the next morning Hal was so much improved that the hospital corps
man took a chair by the bedside.
"You may want some of the news, Overton, about things that have
happened while you've been here."
"I am just a bit curious," smiled Overton.
"Three of the delinquents got off with ordinary summary court
punishments--fines and a little stretch at the guard house. But
Minturn, Dowley and Hooper are locked up there, too, and they've got to
wait and stand court-martial. Their day in the Army is ended, I reckon."
"It ought to be," nodded Hal. "They're no good to the service."
Noll was allowed to come in for a few minutes that afternoon.
Eight days passed ere Hal Overton was released from hospital. Then the
surgeon marked him "quarters" on sick report, which meant that Private
Overton was excused from all duties, and must spend his time in taking
care of himself only.
For four days he continued to be marked "quarters," chafing all the
time.
"There's a lot I've got to learn about the soldiering business," he
grumbled. "I haven't any time to waste loafing."
"There's one soldierly duty you can learn right now, then," smiled
Soldier Noll quizzically.
"What's that?"
"You can learn how to obey the rainmaker when you fall under his
orders," replied his chum indulgently.
"How does an impatient fellow learn that, I wonder?" sighed Hal.
"Why, what are you kicking about?" demanded Noll in pretended
astonishment.
"You're surely not being overworked, and you're getting in trim for the
next work we have cut out for us."
"What's that?"
"Haven't you heard?"
"Not a word."
"Why, the whole battalion, except for a small guard squad from each
company, is to be ordered to the September encampment of the Colorado
National Guard. The regulars are to be represented there by field
artillery, cavalry, infantry, signal corps men and engineer troops.
Hal, it's going to be great! There'll be more than eight hundred
regulars and two brigades of militia in camp together."
"It won't do me any good," retorted Private Overton cynically.
"Why not?"
"I'm just out of hospital, and I'll be stuck on the home guard detail
from B Company."
"Oh, I don't believe that," urged Noll soothingly.
"Wait and see."
There came a morning when Private Overton marched over to hospital with
the other men on sick report.
"You seem to be doing pretty well now, Overton," remarked Lieutenant
Gross, the surgeon.
"How are you going to mark me, sir, to-day?" breathed Hal anxiously.
"Duty," smiled the rainmaker.
"Thank goodness," murmured the soldier boy.
"Why, what's the matter with being marked quarters, Overton?"
"Fine, for a loafer, sir, but I want to learn the soldier business, and
I haven't any time to lose."
"From all I hear," remarked the rainmaker, "you're learning the soldier
business fully as rapidly as you need to."
"There's a lot more I want to know, sir, and it can't be learned when a
man is marked 'hospital' or 'quarters,' sir," Hal returned. "Thank you
for marking me 'duty.'"
"There's a real soldier, or I'm too green to be an officer," thought
Lieutenant Gross, as his eyes followed Hal, who, erect and full of
spring, was striding from the room.
On the third day after his return to duty Hal was warned for the guard.
The following morning he turned out to be inspected with the new guard.
As he was not assigned to the first relief, Hal seated himself inside
the guard house, picking up one of the books that rested on a table
there and began reading.
Presently the other soldiers sauntered outside, and Soldier Hal was
left there alone.
"Overton!"
Hal laid down his book, rising and stepping over to a cell door to find
Dowley's eyes glaring at him balefully.
"You sneak, you're responsible for getting me into all this trouble!"
hissed the soldier in arrest.
"Dowley, you know very well that the rules forbid a member of the guard
from talking with a prisoner, except when the talk is strictly in the
line of duty."
With that Soldier Hal turned and went back to his book.
"You could have gotten out of that place in Mason City when I told you
to," went on Dowley hoarsely. "Then all that followed would never have
happened."
Hal went on reading.
"Say, Hooper," muttered Dowley aloud to the man in another cell, "as a
fresh kid ain't that fellow the end of the world?"
"He's a boot-lick," jeered Hooper.
"He just sneaks around the officers, telling 'em lies so as to get
things easier for himself," broke in Corporal Minturn from still
another cell. For these three, unlike the ordinary run of guard-house
prisoners, had been placed in separate confinement.
Hal read on, though the color mounted to his cheeks.
"You dirty dog!" cried Dowley hoarsely.
"Lying sneak!" from Bill Hooper.
"Two-cent boot-lick!" was Corporal Minturn's contribution.
Hal laid down his book, rose and stepped over to where he could look at
the three, one after another.
"If you men don't hold your tongues," he warned coolly, "I shall have
to report you to the corporal of the guard for abusive talk. I don't
want to do that, either."
"Oh, my, a little bit of authority!" sneered Corporal Minturn.
"Tin general!" taunted Dowley.
"Go and boot-lick some more!" urged Bill Hooper.
"Corporal of the guard!" summoned Soldier Hal.
Corporal Sykes entered promptly.
"Corporal, these men in solitary are amusing themselves by heaping
insults upon me. I don't report them, Corporal, on account of personal
feeling, for they're down on their luck, and they hold me responsible
for it, as in a measure, of course, I am. But I don't want to get on
the record for laxity while on guard."
"Quite right, Overton," nodded Corporal Sykes. Then, turning to the
three "solitaries," he demanded:
"Why are you prisoners guilty of insulting and abusive language toward
a member of the guard?"
"He's too well satisfied with himself," sneered Bill Hooper.
"Ditto," scowled Dowley.
"What have you to say, Minturn?" demanded Corporal Sykes.
"The kid just sat down there to make us mad," replied Minturn in a
growling voice. "The sight of that boot-lick makes me sick all over."
"That's all I want to know," replied Corporal Sykes calmly. "You've all
admitted the abusive language, so I'll enter it on report, which will
be brought up at court-martial. If there's any further report about you
men I'll mention the matter to the officer of the day. Where are you
going with that book, Overton?"
"Since the sight of myself disturbs the prisoners," Hal replied, "I am
going to take my book outside."
"I'd rather you wouldn't," replied Corporal Sykes crisply. "Members of
the guard have a right in here, and prisoners who don't like a member
of the guard had no business to become prisoners."