The Little Colonel's Hero Part 21

"I don't mind the bugs and spiders," said Katie, recklessly, "and you'd better not let the boys find out that you do, or they'll never stop teasing you."

A bountifully spread supper-table met their sight as they reached the camp. It had been made by laying long boards across two poles, which were supported by forked stakes driven into the ground. The eight girls made a rush for the camp-stools on one side of the table, and the eight boys grabbed those on the other side.

"Don't have to have no manners in the woods," remarked little Freddy Nicholls, straddling his stool, and beginning his supper, regardless of the knife and fork beside his plate. "That's what I like about camping out. You don't have to wait to have things handed to you, but can dip in and get what you want like an Injun."

Lloyd looked at him scornfully as she daintily unfolded her paper napkin.

She nodded a decided yes when Katie whispered, "Aren't boys horrid and greedy!" Then she corrected herself hastily. She had seen Malcolm wait to pa.s.s a dish of fried chicken to his Aunt Allison before helping himself, and heard Ra.n.a.ld apologise to his next neighbour for accidentally jogging his elbow. "Not all of them," she replied.

It added much to Betty's interest in the meal to know that the cup from which she drank, and the fork with which she ate, had been used by real soldiers, and carried from one army post to another many times in the travel-worn old mess chest.

Little Elise was the only one who did not give due attention to her supper. She sat with a cooky in her hand, looking off at the hills with dreamy eyes, until her mother spoke to her.

"I am trying to make some poetry like Betty did," she answered. Ever since the play her thoughts seemed trying to twist themselves into rhymes, and she was constantly coming up to her mother with a new verse she had just made.

"Well, what is it, t.i.tania?" asked Mrs. Walton, seeing from the gleam of satisfaction in the black eyes that the verse was ready.

"It's all of our names," she said, shyly, waving her hand toward the girls on her side of the table.

"Betty, Corinne, and Lloyd, Margery, Kitty, and Kate, Allison and Elise all together make eight."

"Oh, that's easy," said Rob. "You just strung a lot of names together.

Anybody can do that."

"You do it, then," proposed Kitty. "Make a verse with the boys' names in it."

"Malcolm, Ra.n.a.ld, and Rob, Jamie, Freddy, Keith," he began, boldly, then hesitated. "There isn't any rhyme for Keith."

"Change them around," suggested Malcolm. The girls would not help, and the whole row of boys floundered among the names for a while, unwilling to be beaten by the youngest member of the party, and a girl, at that. Finally, by their united efforts and a hint from Miss Allison, they succeeded.

"Malcolm, Ra.n.a.ld, and Rob, Keith and Freddy, and James, Joe the Ogre, and George. Those are the boys' eight names."

"Let's make a law," suggested Kitty, "that n.o.body at the table can say anything from now on till we are through supper, unless they speak in rhymes."

They all agreed, but for a few minutes no one ventured a remark. Only giggles broke the silence, until Allison asked Freddy Nicholls to pa.s.s the pickles. Recorded here in a book, it may seem a very silly game, but to the jolly camping party, ready to laugh at even the sheerest nonsense, it proved to be the source of much fun. Even Freddy, to his own great delight, surprised himself and the company by asking Elise to take some cheese. Joe was thrown into confusion by Kitty's asking him if flesh, fowl, or fish, was his favourite dish. As he could only nod his head, he had to pay a forfeit, and Keith answered for him by saying, "That's not a fair question to Joe. An ogre eats all things, you know." So it went on until Mrs. Walton said:

"Now all who are able, may rise from the table.

The camp-fire's burning bright.

Spread rugs on the ground, and gather around, And we'll all tell tales in its light."

"This is the jolliest part of it all!" exclaimed Keith, a little later, as, stretched out on a thick Indian blanket, he looked around on the circle of faces, glowing in the light of the leaping f.a.got-fire. Twilight had settled on the camp. The tumbling of the waterfall over the rocks made a subdued roar in the background. An owl called somewhere from the depths of the woods. As the dismal "Tu-whit, tu who-oo" sounded through the gloaming, Lloyd glanced over her shoulder with a shudder.

"Ugh!" she exclaimed. "It looks as if the witch's orchard might be there behind us, with all sorts of snaky, crawlin' things in it. Come heah, Hero. Let me put my back against you. It makes me feel shivery to even think of such a thing!"

The dog edged nearer at her call, and she snuggled up against his tawny curls with a feeling of warmth and protection.

"Wish I had a dog like that," said Jamie, fondly stroking the silky ear that was nearest him. "I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for him if I had."

"Money couldn't buy Hero!" exclaimed Lloyd.

"Now what would you do," said Kitty, who was always supposing impossible things, "if some old witch would come to you and say, 'You may have your choice? a palace full of gold and silver and precious stones and give up Hero, or keep him and be a beggar in rags?"

"I'd be a beggah, of co'se!" cried Lloyd, warmly, throwing her arm around the dog's neck. "Think I'd go back on anybody that had saved my life? But I wouldn't stay a beggah," she continued. "I'd put on the Red Cross too, and we'd go away where there was war, Hero and I, and we'd spend ou' lives takin' care of the soldiahs. I wouldn't have to dress in rags, for I'd weah the nurse's costume, and I'd do so much good that some day, may be, somebody would send me the Gold Cross of Remembrance, as they did Clara Barton, and I'm suah that I'd rathah have that, with all it means, than all the precious stones and things that the witch could give me."

"When did Hero save your life?" asked Joe, who had not heard the story of the runaway in Geneva.

"Tell us all about it, Lloyd," asked Mrs. Walton. So Lloyd began, and the group around the fire listened with breathless attention. And that was followed by the Major's story, and all he had told her of St. Bernard dogs, and of the Red Cross service. Then the finding of the Major by his faithful dog on the dark mountain after the storm. Betty's turn came next.

She repeated some of the stories they had heard on shipboard. Mrs. Walton added her part afterward, telling her personal experience with the Red Cross work in Cuba and the Philippines.

"That is one reason I took such a deep interest in your little entertainment," she said, "and was so pleased when it brought so much money. I know that every penny under the wise direction of the Red Cross will help to make some poor soldier more comfortable; or if some sudden calamity should come in this country, before it was sent away, your little fund might help to save dozens of lives."

The fire had burned low while they talked, and Elise was yawning sleepily.

Miss Allison looked at her watch. "How the time has flown!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Where is the bugler of this camp? It is high time for him to play taps."

Ra.n.a.ld ran for his bugle, and the clear call that he had learned to play when he was "The Little Captain," in far-away Luzon, rang out into the dark woods. It was answered by the same silvery notes. Mrs. Walton and Miss Allison looked at each other in surprise, for the reply was no echo, but the call of a real bugle, somewhere not far away.

"Oh, we forgot to tell you, Aunt Mary," said Malcolm, noting the surprised glance, "It's a regiment of the State Guard, in camp over by Calkin's Cliff. We boys were over there this morning. They made a big fuss over us when they found that Ra.n.a.ld was General Walton's son and we were his nephews. They wanted us to stay to dinner, and when they found out that you were coming to camp here, the Colonel said be wanted to come over here and call. He used to know you out West."

"Colonel Wayne," repeated Mrs. Walton, when Malcolm finally remembered the name. "We knew him when he was only a young cadet at West Point. The General was very fond of him, and I shall be glad to see him again."

"They'll be interested in Hero," said Ra.n.a.ld. "Maybe they'll want to train some war dogs for our army if they set him at work. Do you suppose he has forgotten his training, Lloyd? Let's try him in the morning."

"You can make a great game of it," suggested Mrs. Walton. "Rig up one of the tents for a hospital. Some of the boys can be wounded soldiers and some of the girls nurses."

"All but me," said Lloyd. "I'll have to be an officer to give the ordahs.

He only knows the French words for that, and the Majah taught them to me."

"What can we use for the bra.s.sards and costumes?" said Kitty.

"Elise has an old red ap.r.o.n in the clothes-hamper that we can cut up for crosses," said Mrs. Walton, always ready for emergencies. "But now to your tents, every man of you, or you'll never be ready to get up in the morning."

It was hard to go to sleep in the midst of such strange surroundings, and more than once Lloyd started up, aroused by the hoot of an owl, or the thud of a bat against the side of the tent. Not until she reached out and laid her hand on the great St. Bernard stretched out beside her cot, did she settle herself comfortably to sleep. With the touch of his soft curls against her fingers, she was no longer afraid.

When the officers came into the camp next day, they found the children in the midst of their new game. It was some time before their attention was attracted to it, for the Colonel was one of the men who had followed General Walton on his long, hard Indian campaign, and there were many questions to be asked and answered, about mutual friends in the army.

Hero was not making a serious business of the game, but was entering into it as if it were a big frolic. He could not make believe as the boys could, who played at soldiering. But the old words of command, uttered, in the Little Colonel's high, excited voice, sent him bounding in the direction she pointed, and the prostrate forms he found scattered about the sham battle field, seemed to quicken his memory. Mrs. Walton presently called the officer's attention to the efforts Hero was making to recall his old lessons, and briefly outlined his history.

"I believe he would remember perfectly," said the Colonel, watching him with deep interest, "if we were to take him over to our camp, and try him among the regular uniformed soldiers. Of course our accoutrements are not the kind he has been accustomed to, but I think they would suggest them.

At least the smell of powder would be familiar, and the guns and canteens and knapsacks might awaken something in his memory that would revive his entire training. I should like very much to make the experiment."

After some further conversation, Lloyd was called up to meet the officers, and it was agreed that Hero should be taken over to the camp for a trial on the day the sham battle was to take place.

"The day has not yet been definitely determined," said the Colonel, "but I'll send you word as soon as it is. By the way, my orderly was once a young French officer, and often talks of the French army. He'll welcome Hero like a long-lost brother, for he has a soft spot in his heart for anything connected with his motherland. Ill send him over either this evening or to-morrow."

That evening the orderly rode over to bring word that the sham battle would take place the following Thursday, and they were all invited to witness it. Hero's trial would take place immediately after the battle.

While he stood talking to Mrs. Walton and Miss Allison, Lloyd and Kitty came running down the hill with Hero close behind them.

The orderly turned with an exclamation of admiration as the dog came toward him, and held out his hand with a friendly snap of the fingers.

"Ah, old comrade," he called out in French, in a deep, hearty voice.