"Got the colic, Jack?" asked Harris--"you double up so."

Winch glared up at him a moment,--a ludicrous picture, with that writhing face and that curious fighting-cut,--but cast down his eyes again, sulkily, and said nothing.

"Come away, boys," whispered Frank. "Don't stay here, making fun of him.

Why do you?"

"Jack," said Ellis, "we're going to take a drink. Won't you come along with us?"--tauntingly.

And the Blues dispersed, leaving poor Jack to his own bitter reflections.

He had learned one thing--who his friends were. On being released, he shunned Harris and Ellis especially, for a day or two, and paid his court to Frank.

"I am going to tell you something, Frank," said he, as they were once at the pond-side, washing their plates after dinner. "I'm going to leave the company."

"Leave the Blues?" said Frank.

"Yes, and quit the service. I've got sick of it."

"But I thought you liked it so well."

"Well, I did at first. It was a kind of novelty. Come, let's leave it. I will."

"But how can you?"

"Easy enough. I am under age, and my father 'll get me off."

"I should think you would be ashamed to ask him to," Frank could not help saying, with honest contempt.

Jack was not offended this time by his plainness, for he had learned that those are not, by any means, our worst friends, who truly tell us our faults.

"I don't care," he said, putting on an air of recklessness. "I ain't going to lead this miserable dog's life in camp any longer, if I have to desert"--lowering his voice to a whisper; "we can desert just as easy as not, Frank, if we take a notion."

"I, for one," said Frank, indignantly, "shan't take a notion to do anything so dishonorable. We enlisted of our own free will, and I think it would be the meanest and most dishonest thing we could do to----"

"Hush!" whispered Jack. "There's At.w.a.ter; he'll hear us."

At midnight the drummer boy was awakened by a commotion in the tent.

"Come, Frank," said some one, pulling him violently, "we are going to have some great fun. Hurrah!"

Frank jumped up. The boys were leaving the tent. He had already suspected that mischief was meditated, and, anxious to see what it was, he ran out after them.

He found the company a.s.sembled in a dark, mysterious ma.s.s in the street before the row of tents.

"Get a rope around his neck," said one.

"Burn the tent," said another.

"With him in it," said a third.

"What does it all mean?" Frank inquired of his friend At.w.a.ter, whom he found quietly listening to the conspirators.

"A little fun with the Gosling, I believe," said At.w.a.ter, with a shrug.

"They'd better let him alone."

"The Gosling" was the nickname which the Blues had bestowed on their captain.

After a hurried consultation among the ringleaders, the company marched to the tent where the Gosling slept. Only At.w.a.ter, Frank, and a few others lingered in the rear.

"I hope they won't hurt him," said Frank. "Ought we not to give the alarm?"

"And get the lasting ill-will of the boys?" said At.w.a.ter. "We can't afford that."

The captain's tent was surrounded. Knives were drawn. Then, at a concerted signal, the ropes supporting the tent were cut. At the same time the captain's bed, which made a convenient protuberance in the side of the tent, was seized and tipped over, while tent-pole, canvas, and all, came down upon him in a ma.s.s.

"Help! guard! help!" he shrieked, struggling under the heap.

At the instant a large pile of straw, belonging to the quartermaster's department close by, burst forth in a sheet of flame which illumined the camp with its glare.

The boys now ran to their tents, laughing at the plight of their captain, as he issued, furious, from the ruins. Frank began to run too; but thinking that this would be considered an indication of guilt, he stopped. At.w.a.ter was at his side.

"We are caught," said At.w.a.ter, coolly. "There's the guard." And he folded his arms under his cape and waited.

"What shall we do?" said Frank, in great distress, not that he feared the advancing bayonets, but he remembered John Winch's arrest, and dreaded a similar degradation.

"There are two of them," said the half-dressed captain, pointing out Frank and his friend to the officer of the guard.

In his excitement he would have had them hurried off at once to the guard-tent. But fortunately the colonel of the regiment, who had been writing late in his tent, heard the alarm, and was already on the spot.

He regarded the prisoners by the light of the burning straw. Frank, recovering from the trepidation of finding himself for the first time surrounded by a guard, and subject to a serious accusation returned his look with a face beaming with courage and innocence. The colonel smiled.

"Have you been meddling with Captain ----'s bed and cutting his tent down?" he asked.

"No, sir," said Frank, with a mien which bore witness to the truth.

"Do you know who set that fire?"

"No, sir."

"What are you out of your tent for?"

"I came to see the fun, sir. If it was wrong I am very sorry."

"What fun?"

"The boys were going to have some fun; I didn't know what, and I came to see."

"What boys?"