HOLDING UP A CAMP GUARD
HALF an hour before daylight was due everyone in the camp was stirring.
The two new cooks for the day had their work cut out for them. Other
soldiers busied themselves with hauling wood and water.
Then, too, the four horses belonging to the transport wagons had to be
curried, watered and fed.
By the time these first duties were out of the way broad daylight had
come and breakfast was ready.
The meal over "police," or cleaning up, was performed as carefully as in
barracks.
The hunters were now ready to set out, for, in the meantime, the
antelope and bears killed the afternoon before had been skinned and the
meat hung up in the dry, cool air.
"Anybody in this outfit been wearing moccasins?" queried Corporal Hyman,
strolling back into camp.
No one admitted it.
"Then we've been having visitors in the night," continued Hyman. "No
less than four of them, either, for the prints are right under that
tree over there, and they lead down to the trail."
"Moccasins? Indians, then?" thrilled Private William Green, who was one
of the hunting party.
"Sorry to spoil your dream of glory in an Indian fight, Green," laughed
the lieutenant, "but the last Indian in these parts died years ago."
"But what can the moccasins mean?" pondered Sergeant Hal aloud. "If
there have been visitors about, and honest ones, they would naturally
let themselves be announced. Dietz, you had the last trick of watch?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Did you see or hear any prowlers?"
"Nary one, Sergeant."
"Corporal Hyman, take me over to the moccasin prints. Lieutenant, do you
mind taking a look at them, too, sir?"
Mr. Prescott stepped over in the wake of Hyman and Overton.
"There are the prints," declared the corporal, pointing. "On account of
the hard ground they're not very distinct, but there were four of the
fellows."
"More likely five," supplemented Lieutenant Prescott, pointing to still
another set of footmarks.
"Here are other prints over here," called Sergeant Overton. "Aren't
these still a different set?"
"Yes," agreed both the lieutenant and Corporal Hyman.
"Then there were at least six men prowling about here while we slept in
the night," concluded Hal.
"And here is one of the trails," called the lieutenant, "leading toward
camp."
"Suppose we follow the trail?" suggested the young sergeant.
They did so, halting at the end of the trail.
"From here I can see where the stool of the guard rested near the fire,"
continued Overton. "From that it would seem fair to conclude that one of
the prowlers got this far, found our guard awake, and then retired."
"It would be interesting to know who our visitors were," nodded
Lieutenant Prescott.
"I've changed my mind about going hunting to-day," went on Sergeant Hal.
"While the rest of you are out after game I am going to remain right
here."
"The camp is guarded by two reliable men," remarked Mr. Prescott.
"True enough, sir, but they're not real guards, for both will have their
hands full with camp housework," objected the boyish sergeant. "They
can't do real guard duty, or else we'd all have to turn to get the
evening meal in a rush. So I've decided to remain behind to-day."
"And, on the whole, I think you're wise to do it, Sergeant," approved
the lieutenant.
So, while the main party hied itself away soon after, Hal Overton
remained behind with the two camp duty men.
Having a couple of good books in his tent, Sergeant Hal donned his olive
tan Army overcoat, spread a poncho and a pair of blankets on the ground
and lay down to read.
But his rifle and ammunition belt rested beside him.
The morning passed without any event, other than two or three times
Sergeant Overton paused long enough in his reading to do some brief
scouting past the camp.
Nothing came of it, however. At noon Hal ate with Dietz and Johnson.
"The chuck is better back in camp," laughed the young sergeant. "But
I've heard a gun half a dozen times this morning, and each time I've
been curious to know how the hunting luck is running."
"Nobody will beat the haul you made yesterday, Sarge," offered Private
Dietz.
"Oh, I'd like to see several of the fellows beat it," rejoined Overton.
"I certainly hope to see both wagons go back loaded to the top with
game. I don't want to have the only military command I ever enjoyed
being the head of go back stumped."
"We're not stumped, with five bear carcasses," hinted Private Johnson.
"Those carcasses might afford two meat meals to the garrison,"
speculated Sergeant Overton. "But what we want to do is to take back so
much game flesh that no man in Fort Clowdry will want to hear game meat
mentioned again before next spring."
"Huh! By that time the old Thirty-fourth will probably be in the
Philippines," retorted Dietz, forking eight ounces more of wood-broiled
bear steak to his tin plate.
"I wonder!" cried Hal, his eyes blazing with eagerness.
"Crazy to get out to the islands, Sarge?"
"Humph! I put in three years there with the Thirty-fourth," grunted
Dietz. "I'll never kick at a transfer to another regiment whenever the
regiment I'm in gets the islands route."
"What have you against the Philippines?" Hal wanted to know.
"Well, Sarge, don't you enjoy this cool, crisp, bracing air up here in
the hills?"
"Certainly. Who wouldn't? This air is bracing--life-giving."
"Nothing like it in the Philippines," answered Dietz. "It's hot
there--hot, you understand."
"Yet I've been told that a soldier always needs his blankets there at
night," objected Hal.
"Yes; if you have to sleep outdoors, then you need your full uniform on,
including shoes and leggings, and you wrap yourself up tight in your
blanket. But that isn't to keep warm; it's to keep the mosquitoes from
eating you alive. So, after you get done up in your blanket, you put a
collapsible mosquito net over your head to protect your face and neck.
Then there's a trick you have to learn of wrapping your hands in under
your blanket in such a way that the skeeters can't follow inside. After
you've been in the islands a few weeks you learn how to do yourself up
so that the skeeters can't get at your flesh."
"Then that ought to be all right," smiled Hal hopefully.
"Yes; but you never heard a Filipino skeeter holler when he's mad. When
they find they can't get at you then about four thousand settle on your
net and blanket and sing all night. You've got to be fagged out before
you can sleep over the racket those little pests make."
"I guess the whole trick can be learned," predicted Overton.
"The night trick can be learned after a while," agreed Dietz. "But, in
the daytime, there's nothing that can be done to protect you. You simply
have to suffer. Then the hot days! Why, Sarge, I've marched north up the
tracks of the Manila & Dagupan railroad, carrying fifty pounds of
weight, on days when the sun sure beat down on us at the rate of a
hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit."
"Yet you're alive, now," observed Overton.
"Oh, yes; just as it happens."
"But surely there's some marching in the shade, too?"
"Oh, yes; sometimes you spend the whole day, everyday for a fortnight,
hiking through the dense jungles after a gang of bolomen or Moros or
ladrones. Shade enough there in the jungle, but it has a Turkish bath
beaten to a plum finish. You drip, drip, drip with perspiration, until
you'd give a week's pay to be out in the sun for ten minutes with a
chance to get dried off."
"I'm going to like it, just the same," retorted Hal. "I know I am. And,
if the natives put up any real trouble for us, then we'll see some
actual service. That's what a very young soldier always aches for, you
know, Dietz."
"Yes, and it's sure fun fighting those brown-skinned little Filipino
goo-goos," grunted the older soldier. "First they fire on you, and then
you and your comrades lie down and fire back. After you've had a few men
hit the order comes to charge. Then you all rise and rush forward,
cheering like the Fourth of July. You have to go through some tall grass
on the way, and, first thing you know, a parcel of hidden bolo men jump
up right in front of you. They use their bolos--heavy knives--to slit
you open at the belt line. Ugh! I'd sooner fight five men with guns than
step on one of those bolo men in the jungle!"
"Just the same," voiced the young sergeant, "the sooner the
Thirty-fourth is ordered to the island the better I'll like it. I'm wild
to see some of the high foreign spots."
"Wish I could give you all the chances that are coming to me in my
service in the Army," grunted Private Dietz, as he rose from the table.
The afternoon was one of harder work for the two camp duty men. Hal
tried to read again, but found his thoughts too frequently wandering to
the Philippines.
The afternoon waxed late, at last, though still there was no sign of the
hunters. Once in a while a gun had been heard at some distance, and that
was all.
All the time Sergeant Hal had trailed his rifle about camp with him.
Now, tiring of reading, he went to his tent, standing his rifle against
the front tent pole.
Hearing a swift step the young sergeant reached the tent flap in time to
see a roughly-dressed, moccasined white man running away with Hal's Army
rifle.
Then, in the same instant, he heard a voice call:
"Throw your hands up there, man!"
"Holding me up with my own gun, are you?" raged Private Dietz.
"Yes; and we've got the other chap's lead-piece, too. Up with your
hands, both of you."
Hal dropped back behind the flap of his tent, peering out through a
little crack in the canvas.
There were now seven men outside, all strangers, all rough-looking and
all moccasined.
Between them they had the three rifles belonging in camp that day.
"Bring out that other fellow, the kid sergeant," commanded the same
voice, after Dietz and Johnson, hopelessly surprised, had hoisted their
hands skyward.
"Humph!" growled Sergeant Hal, his eyes snapping. "I don't like the idea
of surrendering the camp that I command!"