Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty. Hancock Harrie Irving

laughed Hooper. "And we can't afford to quarrel. We're both pledged to getting Overton kicked out of the service."

      "Are you sure that he and Terry really expect to work their way up to becoming commissioned officers?"

      "I have it on the best of authority," declared Private Hooper.

      "Whose?"

      "Their own."

      "Did they tell you so?"

      "Not they! Those kids are too close-mouthed for that. At least, they didn't tell me direct, and I don't believe they've told any other enlisted men on the post. But I heard them talking it over, one day when they didn't know I was around. They expect to be made corporals before their first year is out. In three years they hope to be sergeants, and then they scheme to take the enlisted men's examination for commissions as second lieutenants."

      "Lieutenants? Shave-tails?" guffawed Dowley. "Hooper, they'll never even be corporals. It's a bob-tail discharge for theirs!"

      Second lieutenants, when their commissions are very new, are often referred to as "shave-tails." A "bob-tail" is a dishonorable discharge, after court-martial. To a real soldier a "bob-tail" means unspeakable disgrace.

      "A bob-tail for theirs – yes, sir," repeated Private Dowley. "And I'm genius enough to bring it about!"

      "Perhaps you won't need my help, for you sure are some smart," suggested Bill Hooper in a tone of pretended admiration.

      "I'm smart enough to see that you'd drop out and use me as the catspaw," growled Private Dowley. "None of that, Bill! You'll stand right by and do half of the dirty work in exchange for half of the satisfaction. Between us we'll give that fool Overton a new middle name, and that middle name will be 'Bob-tail'!"

      CHAPTER II

      ON THE GREAT SUMMER HIKE

      FROM up the mountain road one of a little group of officers ahead sent back an informal signal.

      "B Company fall in!" called out Lieutenant Dick Prescott.

      "C Company fall in!" followed Lieutenant Greg Holmes.

      These two young West Pointers had been left temporarily in command of the companies with which they served.

      Some hundred and eighty men rose from their by no means soft seats on the ground along the trail and fell into single file.

      Another hand signal came down the trail.

      "B Company forward, route step, march!" commanded Lieutenant Prescott.

      "C Company forward, route step, march," echoed Lieutenant Holmes a moment later.

      Tortuously the line moved forward once more. To one well up in the air that long line might have looked like a thin serpent trailing its way up the mountain side. But it was a very real, human line.

      Each private soldier carried rifle, bayonet, cartridge belt, intrenching tool, canteen, haversack and blanket roll. It was a heavy pack. In addition, men here and there carried either a pick or a shovel.

      Noll was carrying an extra shovel just now. Hal Overton had no such extra pack to-day, but all the day before he had toiled along with a pick added to the rest of his equipment.

      What have soldiers to do with a pick and shovel? Theoretically these two companies now engaged on field duty were marching through a hostile country. After a battle the pick and shovel may be used for the work of burying slain comrades. Such tools are also useful in the swift digging of trenches in which to fight.

      It was past the middle of the afternoon now, and the day of the week Monday. This little column was winding up the third day of its work in field.

      As B Company traveled tediously along, Hal Overton was nineteenth man from the first sergeant. Noll was twentieth; directly behind Terry marched Private Hyman.

      "Terry?" called Hyman in a low tone.

      "Yes?" returned Noll.

      "How do you like field work now?"

      "Fine."

      "You're a cheerful liar," growled Private Hyman.

      "No, I'm not," laughed Noll. "I'm telling the truth."

      "You really enjoy this hike?"

      "Yes; and so does Hal."

      "Huh! He's a bigger liar than you are."

      "What's that human calamity behind you howling about?" demanded Private Overton.

      "He's intimating that the truth isn't in us because we claim to like field duty."

      "Hyman always was a bake-house soldier," laughed Hal cheerily.

      "What's that kid saying about me?" demanded Hyman.

      "Overton says," reported Noll, not very accurately, "that he can't understand why you're in the Army at all. He says that one of your temperament could find a job in civil life that would suit you much better."

      "What job is that?" asked Hyman.

      "Nurse girl," grinned Terry.

      "For that," threatened Hyman, "I'll put salt in that kid's coffee to-night."

      The conversation was carried on in a low tone of course. Troops in the field, marching at route step, are allowed to carry on quiet conversations when not supposed to be near the enemy.

      "You want to look out for Hyman, Hal," Noll passed word forward.

      "Why?"

      "He says you stole his bacon from his haversack this morning and he's going to set a steel trap in his haversack to-night."

      "Hyman doesn't know the truth when he halts it on sentry post," Overton retorted. "Hyman hasn't had any bacon in his haversack since we started from Fort Clowdry."

      "How do you know?" demanded Private Hyman, who happened to overhear this statement.

      "Because I've gotten up every night and looked through your haversack for bacon," declared Private Overton unblushingly.

      "I heard to-day why you joined the Army," grunted Hyman.

      "Yes?" grinned Hal.

      "Sure! You had some trouble with the sheriff at home over stealing the flowers from the cemetery and selling them to get cigarette money. You're a nice one, Overton, to be entrusted with government property!"

      "Oh, come, now, Hyman," Hal laughed back. "That wasn't so bad as your case. You enlisted because the judge said you'd either have to go to jail for robbing the Salvation Army's Christmas boxes, or else turn soldier."

      Half a dozen men in the long line were laughing now.

      "I'll fix you for that when you're asleep to-night," growled Hyman.

      "Yes; I notice you never do anything to a fellow when he's awake," jeered Private Hal.

      The two men were not on bad terms, nor in any danger of becoming so. This was merely an instance of the way soldiers "josh" one another.

      The sun was now disappearing behind the western hill tops. It would be daylight, however, for more than two hours to come.

      Fifty minutes after this last start Lieutenant Prescott again received a hand signal from the officers on ahead.

      "B Company halt; fall out," ordered the young West Pointer.

      Holmes repeated the command to C Company.

      The head of the line had halted near a grove through which a brook bubbled along on its way to the stream down in the canyon to the right of the trail.

      "The officers are going to inspect the grove as a site for camp," was the word that passed back along the line.

      "A soldier's first duty," quoth Hal, as he sank upon the ground, "is to make himself as comfortable as he can."

      Noll, too, dropped to the ground, and Hyman followed the example.

      "Overton, I'll have to borrow some of that baby powder of yours to-night," sighed Hyman.

      "For your complexion?" grinned Hal.

      "No;