That day, devoted in considerable part to the discussion of plans, pa.s.sed without important incident. The slackers came and went, the boys kept mostly to themselves, discreetly remaining within the borders of the camp, and there was peace. But at supper they noticed a studied coolness toward them, particularly in the larger group of which Sweet Jackson was the center. While the boys spoke and acted with all discretion, Jackson stared at them often, talking in a low voice to those about him. His grudge against Ted was plainly visible and he seemed to be trying to stir up the other men against him. The boys went off to bed early, much troubled in mind. At the camp fire the next night Sweet Jackson deliberately stepped out of his path in order to hook his toe under Ted's outstretched leg and give it a rude and vicious shove.

"Why can't you keep yer feet out o' the road?" he shouted angrily.

"Why don't you do that to a man of your size?" cried Ted in hot indignation.

"_Size_ don't bother me when I get good and mad," declared Jackson menacingly.

"Oh, Billy, don't you want to play a game!" called out Hubert in the most cheerful voice. "Come on, Ted."

Then Hubert jerked Ted to his feet and pulled him away in the direction of the imaginary Billy, who was, in fact, nowhere to be seen. "_Don't_ answer him back," whispered the younger boy urgently. "If you do, we'll have trouble. Keep away from him!"

Thus the incident pa.s.sed and with it any immediate danger, thanks to Hubert's ready and resolute interference.

The next day at breakfast and dinner July served the boys after the slackers had eaten and scattered--at Hubert's suggestion. And at supper he fed them with Billy at the cook-camp fire about forty feet apart from the fire around which the slackers ate and lounged. Sweet Jackson observed the new arrangement with a mocking smile, looking over at the cook-camp often as he talked merrily with those about him.

"That's right," he called out once. "Stay there with the n.i.g.g.e.r, where you belong."

Ted started up, furious, but Hubert hung upon him on one side and Billy, giggling and thinking it was a kind of game, hung upon him on the other.

"_Don't!_" warned Hubert.

And then, as several of the slackers spoke up in protest, Jackson made no further hostile demonstration.

Too outraged to speak, or even to think clearly, Ted soon rose and almost literally staggered off to bed.

"We'll have to go--to-day or to-night," were his first words to Hubert next morning, after a sleepless night.

This was at breakfast, after the slackers had scattered. He had purposely stayed in bed late in order to avoid them. He now spoke while the negro noisily cleaned his pots.

"Well, I've pumped July about all the trails leading out he knows of,"

said Hubert, "and all we've got to do is to make a choice and beat it at the first chance."

Suddenly the negro turned from his pots and planted himself in front of the two boys, his face very serious.

"Cap'n Ted," he began, "you reckon I kin 'pend on what you said 'bout gittin' a cook's job behind de lines in dat waw?"

"I can't say for certain, July, but I think you can."

"Well, I got to tek de risk anyhow," the negro announced with an air of finality. "I's gwine out o' dis swamp. I's done wid dat gang o' white trash. I got my dose. I gwine out wid you boys."

"That's great," cried Hubert. "But what's happened, July?"

"Dis mawnin' when I was workin' de bes' I knowd how an' givin' dem men good vittles, dey up an' made fun o' my hair. Dat-ere Sweet Jackson 'lowed dat a n.i.g.g.e.r wasn't a rale human pusson because, stid o' hair, he had wool on his haid. Den dey all looked at me an' laughed till dey shook. I wished I could 'a' tole 'em dey was a liar and a-busted 'em wide open!"

"That was very unkind," said Ted, struggling hard, as did Hubert, not to laugh.

"I reckon you boys done had all you want o' dat gang yo'sef," said July, "an' in as big a hurry to git away fum yuh as I is."

"Yes," agreed Hubert. "This is the fourth day and Mr. Peters and Mr.

Jones haven't come back. There's no telling _when_ Mr. Hardy will come.

Even Ted hasn't anything to stay for now."

"I wanted so much to try to wake up some of the slackers and make them see," said Ted, "but I'm afraid I can't do anything now. I give up," he concluded, a big tear rolling down one cheek.

"Cap'n Ted, honey, don't you worry," said July, with sympathy. "You done yo' bes' and dat's all a man kin do. It look' to me sometimes like you was gwine to git Mr. Hardy an' maybe Mr. Peters, but you couldn't 'a'

done nothin' wid dat white trash left yuh in dis swamp. If dey was _dragged_ to de waw dey would des lay down an' let de Germans walk on 'em. I use' to hear a white gen'l'man say, 'you can't mek a silk purse out'n a sow's ear,' an' I putty nigh busted my head tryin' to understan'

what he meant, but I knows now he was talkin' 'bout des sich trash as dat. Don't you worry, Cap'n Ted; de President an' de gov'ment'll tek care o' dat waw."

"We haven't any time to waste," spoke up Hubert impatiently, proposing that they at once decide on a plan and begin to get ready. He asked the negro if they could run away that very day.

July replied promptly that it wouldn't do to attempt to escape in the day time because since Mr. Hardy's departure the camp had been continually under observation from morning till evening. He said the break for freedom would have to be made at night "when dey ain't expectin'." With this much settled, they went on to discuss routes, and decided that a game of hide-and-seek led by Billy should be the form of camouflage masking their start on their road that night after supper.

The boys were still discussing plans when the majority of the slackers came into camp for dinner, and, as the new man, Mitch' Jenkins, pa.s.sed near where they sat, Ted suddenly got upon his feet and asked eagerly for news from the Russian front.

"Now just look at him," muttered Hubert impatiently. "Will I ever get him away from this place?"

"Oh, Mr. Jenkins," began Ted, in his politest manner, just as if nothing disagreeable had occurred, "I've been wanting to ask you if, before you came in, you heard whether Germany and Russia had made peace or not."

"I didn't hear no talk of it," said Jenkins, eying the boy curiously.

"They had been about to make peace," said Ted, "but just before I came in here they were on the point of going to war again. It was reported that the Russians had threatened to kill 1,500,000 German prisoners of war if the Kaiser marched his army on Petrograd. That would have been perfectly awful, but it's just the kind of thing the Germans themselves did in Belgium and France. I hope they haven't made peace; it's best for us for them to keep on fighting."

"You take a heap of interest, for just a boy, in that war 'way off yonder," said Jenkins, his manner not unfriendly.

"Everybody ought to take an interest, for we are in the fight, too, you know," said Ted, forgetting and becoming argumentative. "Why, don't you see, if the Germans whip all Europe and get England's fleet, they'll come right over here and attack us, and wherever they land our people will have to stand all the terrible things the Belgians and the French have had to stand."

"Here you are a-talkin' about that war again!" stormed Sweet Jackson, who had walked up in time to hear a few words.

"Look h-yer, Jackson, I don't see nothin' the matter with this boy,"

said Jenkins, his tone sharp and his look steady. "Why are you so sot agin him? He jes' asked me if two of them fightin' countries had made peace."

"Oh, well--if that was all," said Jackson more quietly, yielding before unexpected belligerence.

"Thank you, Mr. Jenkins," said Ted politely, and turned away.

"That's a nice, polite kid," said Jenkins to one of the slackers a few moments later. "What's all the row about anyhow?"

"But you ain't heard him exhortin' and shamin' us runaways yet."

"Did he do that? Well, that's a cat of another color. But he sure is a s.p.u.n.ky kid."

After supper that night, as the slackers told yarns and joked about the camp fire, Billy, who had been craftily stimulated, seemed unusually wide awake and repeated nursery rhymes and "rigmaroles" by the dozen.

Taking Hubert's hand in his, he touched the fingers one after another, repeating, "Little man--ring man--long man--lick pot--thumpkin." Then, tweaking the toes of his own bare feet, he merrily recited: "This little pig wants some corn; this one says, 'Where you goin' to git it?' This one says, 'In master's barn.' This one says he's goin' to tell. This one says, 'Queak!--queak!--can't git over the door-sill!'"

Touching first Hubert's index finger and then his own as each word was uttered, Billy went on: "William Ma-trimble-toe; he's a good fisherman; catches hens, puts 'em in pens; some lays eggs, some lays none; wire, briar, limber-lock; sets and sits till twelve o'clock; O-U-T spells 'out'--go!"

Thus was started the camouflage game of hide-and-seek, Ted at once, and July a little later by invitation, joining in the sport. It was a bright moonlight night, and no one seemed sleepy. The slackers stopped telling their yarns and watched the game, the seemingly joyful laughter of the boys and the negro affecting them agreeably. The fun was so contagious that several of the younger slackers, yielding to the fascination of it, joined in the game.