Yet d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k.
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!" d.i.c.k answered. He still stood watching the figure that lay in the shadow of the bushes. The fallen one had not attempted to move. d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, 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," d.i.c.k 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," d.i.c.k 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.
Pa.s.sing 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, d.i.c.k 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," d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k"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," d.i.c.k 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, d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 la.s.soed 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."