Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty

"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; to put in my shoes. This mountain hike has my feet in bad."

"I'll tell you what you ought to do, just before every big hike," laughed Hal.

"Don't tell me anything about the hospital," murmured Hyman disgustedly. "I tried that, day before we left Fort Clowdry, but the rainmaker warned me that if I tried to make hospital report, he'd see to it that I was left on thin gruel diet for a month."

"The rainmaker knew his business," mocked Hal. "And I've heard another yarn about that rainmaker."

"What?"

"After a malingerer gets his thin gruel down the rainmaker gives him a stiff dose of syrup of ipecac, and the gruel comes up again."

"There's no show for a man in the Army nowadays," sighed Hyman, who, with all his pretense at "kicking," was a keen soldier and dependable man.

In every regiment are some soldiers who would shirk every arduous duty if it were possible. The favorite device, with such men, is to turn malingerer – that is, to pretend illness and gain admission to hospital, which means a solid rest while comrades are working hard. But the successes of malingerers in the way of shirking have made Army surgeons keener, also. Lucky is the suspected malingerer who doesn't get put on thin diet and fed nauseating medicines.

From the group of officers ahead on the trail came Captain Freeman and First Lieutenant Ray of C Company.

"Mr. Holmes," called Captain Freeman, "let C Company fall in and take up the march again."

Young Lieutenant Holmes instantly gave the order to fall in. A moment later C Company moved off at the route step.

"What does that mean?" Hal asked Hyman.

"Oh, some new scheme that the officers have hatched up," replied Hyman. "There'll probably be a sham engagement on between C and our company to-morrow."

"We're lucky if it doesn't take place in the night," grunted another soldier.

"Well, my man, suppose it does?" demanded Sergeant Hupner, appearing behind the "kicker." "What do you suppose these manœuvres are for? They're to teach you the soldier's trade. They're to fit you so that, in actual war, you'll know what to do under any given conditions. The better you know your trade, in war, the better chances you have to come out of the war alive. This field duty, which so many of you dislike, is for the training of every officer and man in the very things he does in war time. The better every officer and man understands them the better is each fellow's chance of keeping alive in war time. Those of you who grumble ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Look around you at some of the older soldiers who've seen service, and you'll find they never kick."