THE SENTRY MAKES A CAPTURE
"Post number one! Eleven o'clock, and all's well."
"Post number two! Eleven o'clock, and all's well!"
Cadet Prescott, midway on his post, came to a halt, bringing his
rifle to port arms.
"Post number three! Eleven o'clock, and all's well."
Nor did the plebe return his rifle to his shoulder and resume pacing
until he heard the hail taken up and repeated by the man on
number four. Thus the call traveled the rounds, back to number
one, and died out.
Just an instant later Plebe Prescott became suspicious that
something was wrong in his immediate vicinity.
Rain was threatening, and the sultry night was so dark that, on this
shaded post, the young sentry could see barely a few yards away
from him.
Yet Dick was certain he saw something flash darkly by, not far
away. It could hardly have been a shadow. Whatever it was, a
clump of bushes now concealed the moving something.
"Halt! Who's there?" hailed Cadet Prescott. He stopped to listen,
bringing his rifle once more down to port arms.
There was no response.
Certain, however, that his senses had not been deluded, the young
sentry stepped quickly toward the clump of bushes.
From the other side of the bushes came a sudden sound of
scrambling.
"Halt! Who's there?" demanded Prescott again.
Whoever it was, and plainly there was more than one man there,
the prowlers had no mind to be held up by the sentry or the guard.
"Halt, or I'll run a bayonet into you!" shouted Prescott resolutely.
"Corporal of the guard, post number three!" he bellowed aloud.
At the same time he was darting after the fugitives, whom it was
too dark to distinguish. From the very little that his eyes could
make out, however, it was his belief that the running men were
cadets.
Then one must have stumbled and fallen, for a figure lay between
two bushes as Prescott dashed up.
"Don't you attempt to rise until you get the word, or you'll feel the
jab of my bayonet," warned Dick.
He couldn't follow the others much further, anyway, as he had no
authority to leave his post. The man on number four must have
heard, and would be alert.
"Where are you, number three sentry!" came Cadet Corporal
Brodie's hail.
"Here, sir!" Dick answered. He still stood watching the figure that
lay in the shadow of the bushes. The fallen one had not attempted
to move. Dick Prescott was close enough to make a thrust with his
bayonet-tipped rifle if the fallen one made any effort to leap up.
That was as close as Dick intended to get until help was at hand,
for an old trick with cadets running the guard on a dark night on
this lonely stretch was to wait until the sentry got close enough,
then to reach out and grab him by the ankles, throwing him.
Always, when such a trick was played successfully, the offender
would be up, off and safe by the time the thrown sentry was on his
own feet again.
So Prescott, without in the least intending to let his prisoner get
away, did not venture close enough to risk being pitched over on
his back himself.
"Poor old skylarker, too! I'm sorry for him," muttered Dick, under
his breath. "I'm afraid this spells trouble for some yearling."
"What can I do, though? I show my own unfitness if I let anyone run
the guard past me."
"Call again, sentry on three!" directed the voice of Corporal
Brodie.
"Here, sir," Dick answered.
Then to the spot ran the corporal, followed by two men of the
guard.
"Two or more men attempted to cross this post, sir," Dick
reported. "One tripped, and I'm holding him."
"Head him off, if he attempts to run ahead," directed Mr. Brodie,
nodding to one of his men of the guard. "Now, then, get up, and let
us see whether you're a cadet, or only a banker's son."
But the figure did not rise.
"Get up, sir, I tell you," ordered Corporal Brodie, slowly stepping
past Prescott.
But the figure did not stir.
"Perhaps the man fell and stunned himself," muttered Brodie.
Passing his rifle to his left hand the corporal parted the bushes,
then bent over the prostrate one.
"Oh, hang you!" growled the cadet corporal. He seized the figure
with his right hand, yanked it upward, then hurled it out, letting it
fall again across the post.
"Is that the man you stopped, Mr. Prescott?" demanded Corporal
Brodie in disgust.
But instead of answering, at that moment, Dick straightened up,
brought his rifle to port, and hailed:
"Halt! Who's there?"
"The officer of the day," came out of the blackness.
"Advance, officer of the day, to be recognized," Dick replied.
Forward out of the deep shadow came Cadet Captain Reynolds.
"What's the trouble, Corporal?" inquired the latest arrival.
"Mr. Prescott reports that two or more persons attempted to run
across his post, sir. He overtook one, who stumbled. Mr. Prescott
was guarding his prisoner as I arrived, sir, and that was the
prisoner!"
Corporal Hasbrouck pointed in disdain at the stuffed figure that he
had hauled out from under the bushes and Dick's bayonet.
"A stuffed figure, in gray trousers and shirt, eh?" questioned
Captain Reynolds. "Sentry, were the two or three men who got
away from you of the same composition?"
"I don't know, sir," Dick answered, with mortification. "All I know,
sir, is that those who got away ran pretty fast, and made so little
noise that they doubtless wore rubber-soled shoes."
"You've been hoaxed, sentry," commented the officer of the day
dryly. "Corporal, have your men of the guard bring the prisoner up
to the guard tent. Sentry, if any more straw men attempt to cross
your post, bring them down as well as you did this one. The straw
men who got away from you made their way into camp, didn't
they?"
"Whoever escaped, sir, got into camp all right."
As the guard-house party returned, Dick resumed the pacing of
number three. He felt his face still blazing, from the quiet ridicule
of the officer of the day.
"I'll catch it to-morrow from everyone who thinks me worth
noticing," growled the plebe to himself. "However, though I tried
to do my full duty, I'm glad that was what I caught. I wouldn't care
to march a comrade in, a prisoner."
When the midnight relief came around, and Prescott's relief was
posted in his place, the young plebe knew the ordeal ahead of him.
As soon as the relieved squad was halted at the guard tent, and
Dick entered to get himself a cup of coffee and a sandwich or two,
his glance fell upon the stuffed figure, which reposed on the floor
at the back of the tent as though it had been a veritable prisoner.
"Did you shoot it, Prescott?" asked Derwent, the man who had just
been relieved on number four.
"No; he lassoed it with his neck-tie," jeered another man of the
guard.
"Wonder if the prisoner is hungry!" pursued Derwent. "Prescott,
the prisoner is yours. Attend to his feeding. And the poor fellow
should have some proper bedding, too, a chilly night like this."
"A merciful soldier wouldn't eat until he had seen his prisoner
fed," tantalized another.
Dick had his cup of coffee at his mouth.
"Prescott, old man," commented fat Smith, "you'll be commended
in general orders for distinguished bravery."
That was enough, in itself, to make Dick choke, but Smith
emphasized his remark by slapping Dick on the back. An ounce of
hot coffee, at least, "went down the wrong way." Choking and
gasping for breath, trying to expel the coffee from his windpipe,
and all the while obliged to lean well forward so as not to expel
any of the coffee over the front of his blouse, Dick thought he
never would get his breath again.
"Instead of feeding his prisoner, I believe Mr. Prescott has been
eating some of his prisoner," observed Corporal Hasbrouck dryly.
"Mr. Prescott, himself, appears to be full of straw at present."
The general laugh that followed didn't make it any easier for the
victim of all this nonsense. In laughing again Dick choked so that
he began to turn slightly black.
"Dry up, you hyenas!" ordered Cadet Captain Reynolds, as he
rushed to Prescott's relief. In a few moments the late sentry on
number three was breathing easily again. He threw himself down
on a mattress, and was soon asleep.
But in the morning he had to go through the ordeal ten-fold. As
Dick went to his tent to change some articles of clothing Bert
Dodge appeared in the company street.
"Hey, mister," called yearling Davis, after Bert, "I hear good news.
Last night the guard caught the chap who shanghaied you."
Even Greg and Anstey were prepared to quiz the "hero" of the
comic episode of the night before.
"That was a fine comic opera performance, old chap," grinned
Anstey.
"The next time you arrest a lay figure," suggested Greg, "at least be
good enough to capture one that's stuffed with lemons."
"Oh, the straw figure was a lemon, of a kind," laughed the
Virginian.
"Did the prisoner yell when you pricked point of your bayonet in
its flesh of husks?" Greg wanted to know.
"Do you expect the K.C. to mention you in orders for
distinguished gallantry?" demanded Anstey.
"Or to skin you on a suspicion of stealing straw from the artillery
stables?" snickered Greg.
"I know one funny thing about straw, anyway," declared Anstey,
turning around to Holmes.
"What?" asked Greg.
"It's bound to tickle you," declared the Virginian gravely.
Even at breakfast, in the cadet mess, Dick failed to get away from
his tormentors. One of the yearlings, seated at a table not far from
the one at which Prescott sat, called out to a classmate:
"Queer thing about that prisoner bagged on number three last
night. Did you hear who the prisoner turned out to be?"
"No-o-o," drawled the other yearling, while a hundred pairs of eyes
were turned on flame-faced Prescott.
"It was the class president of the beasts" (plebes).
"Kind of tough fate for the prisoner, though," railed another.
"What's that?"
"He's been sentenced to death. He is to be used as a target for the
plebe squads in target practice."
"That isn't a sentence of death; it's a guarantee of safety."
This last sally turned the laugh on the entire plebe class. Dick
flushed worse than ever when he saw many of his classmates
begin to squirm.
"They might, at least, take it all out on me, and leave the class
alone," muttered Dick to himself.
"Where are you going so fast, mister?" hailed a yearling, after the
return to camp, as he beheld a plebe hurrying down a company
street.
"I'm summoned as a witness before the general court-martial,"
called back Mr. Plebe, over his shoulder.
"Court-martial? I hadn't heard there was to be one."
"Yes, sir; they're going to try the prisoner caught on number three,
sir."
The yearling turned away grinning, for once not deeming it
necessary to rebuke a "beast" for attempting to make a smart
answer.
Out on the range, at target practice, two mornings later, Dick did
some especially bad shooting.
"Don't be afraid of hitting the target, Mr. Prescott," advised
Lieutenant Gerould dryly. "It's made of something more substantial
than straw."
A gleeful roar went up from some of the other "beasts."
Lieutenant Gerould eyed them in surprise, for this Army officer
was one of the few at West Point who had not already heard of
number three sentry's capture.
It was a fortnight ere Cadet Prescott could feel really secure
against more "joshing" over the incident.
"I'm better satisfied than if we had done what we set out to do to
that plebe," remarked Yearling Davis to his tentmates.
"Mr. Prescott is a rather decent sort--for a mere plebe," replied
Poultney. "Do you know, I think he's almost glad that he caught the
dummy we rigged for him. I believe the little beast would have
hated to catch a uniform stuffed with human flesh."