CHAPTER III

THE FIRST BREATH AGAINST A SOLDIER'S HONOR

THE night was so quiet, the air so still, that the single, distant stroke of the town clock bell over in the town of Clowdry was distinctly audible.

Dong! boomed the bell, the vibration reaching the ears of two or three of the lighter sleepers, and causing them to stir lightly in their sleep in Sergeant Hupner's squad room.

Out on the post, not far away, a dog chose to bark at that town-clock bell.

Some one gliding swiftly through the squad room upset a stool with a loud crash. Yet few of the soundly sleeping soldiers bothered their heads about such a series of trivial noises.

Now, a series of hails began, starting down at the guard house and running rapidly around the sentry posts until the sentry pacing near barracks caught it up and called l.u.s.tily:

"Post number six. One o'clock, and all's well!"

One man in especial had been stirring on his cot as though trying to throw off some phantom of dread. Now instantly after the sentry's hail this stirring sleeper emitted an excited yell.

"Wow! Turn out the guard--post number six!"

Instantly Sergeant Hupner awoke, sitting up on his cot.

"What's the matter with you, you idiot?" growled the disturbed sergeant.

"I've been touched!" wailed the excited voice.

It was the voice of Private William Green, the joke of the squad room, the man who h.o.a.rded his money and carried much of it about with him.

"Go to sleep, William," ordered the sergeant in a more soothing voice.

"I've often told you that one so young shouldn't drink coffee at supper."

"I've been touched, I tell you!" insisted William Green, now out of his bed and feeling with frantic hands under the head of the mattress.

"Don't I know? I tell you, my buckskin pouch is gone. Some one was in this room and got it!"

In a jiffy Sergeant Hupner was out of bed. His groping right hand found the switch and turned on the electric lights. Then Hupner jumped for his uniform trousers and drew them on.

"What's wrong, squad room?" called the voice of the alert sentry outside.

But Hupner first went to the door of the squad room, locked it and dropped the key in his trousers' pocket. Then the sergeant ran to an open window.

"I don't believe it's anything worse than a nightmare of one of the men, sentry. Don't call the guard until I look about a bit."

"Very good, Sergeant."

Then Hupner turned to the cot of Corporal Hal Overton, which was close to the window.

"Why, Corporal, what ails you?" demanded the sergeant. "You're shaking and your face has a frightened look."

"I--I have just awakened from a pretty bad dream," Corporal Hal replied sheepishly. "I'll be over it at once."

"Turn out, Corporal, and you also, Corporal Terry. We've got to investigate in this room."

Hal instantly thrust a leg out. Something dropped to the floor.

Bang!

"Ow!" wailed Private Green. "It wasn't a dream, after all. I knew it would go off."

Sergeant Hupner, bending low like a flash, now picked up a revolver from the floor beside Hal's cot, while Hal himself sat up, staring rather dazedly at the weapon.

"How did this come to be in your bed, Corporal Overton?" demanded the sergeant.

"I don't know, Sergeant."

"But it was in your bed. You shook it out when you went to get up just now."

"That's the gun," insisted Private William Green. "I saw it poked into my face by some one prowling before my cot."

"Were you so scared that you didn't dare jump up or say anything?"

demanded Hupner, turning upon Private Green, who had now reached the vicinity of Hal's cot.

"Scared, nothing!" grunted Private William. "I thought I must be dreaming, for there was no danger in this room. Then I heard something go smash down the room, like a stool being tipped over, and then I came altogether out of my doze, and time I did, too! For I put my hand under the mattress and my pouch and money were gone. Whoever poked that gun toward my head got my money!"

By this time more than half the men in the room were sitting up on the edges of their cots. A few more lay still, though wide awake, while a few of the hardest sleepers were still in the Land of Nod.

"Green, are you sure your money's gone?" insisted Hupner sternly. It was no light thing to the reliable old sergeant to find that he had a thief in his squad room.

"Come and look for yourself, Sergeant."

"Corporals Overton and Terry, dress yourselves," ordered the sergeant, as he started after Private William Green. "The rest of you men needn't dress unless I direct it."

"Now, look here, Sergeant," insisted Green, after pulling the mattress bodily from his cot. "Do you see anything that looks like my buckskin pouch?"

There was no pouch to be found on or near Soldier William's cot.

"How much money did you have in the pouch?" demanded Hupner almost angrily.

"Seven hundred and ten dollars," declared Green promptly.

"Whew!"

To most of the soldiers present that much money represented a fortune.

Yet no one in the room thought of doubting William's a.s.sertion. As readers of the preceding volume know, Green had had considerable money when he joined the regiment something more than a year earlier. And William was known to be one who was constantly adding to his money by saving his pay.

Moreover, Private Green had made not a little by lending money to comrades in the battalion. He loaned on the time-honored system of lending among enlisted men in the Army--the system of "five now but six on pay day."

There are soldiers in every company--in every squad room--who always spend their pay within a few days after receiving it from the paymaster.

As soon as his money is gone, and he needs or wants more, the improvident soldier turns to some comrade who saves and lends his money.