But that was something Jennings could not answer. He stopped short, and was evidently confused.
There was indeed something queer about the case. Very little the worse for its night in the weeds, thanks to there having been no dew, for the night skies were overcast by heavy clouds, the rifle was brought in by a drum-boy orderly, who said he stumbled upon it accidentally. Glenn had cross-questioned sharply, but the boy persisted in his story. It was the same youngster whom Benny had employed to buy him cigarettes at the Falls. Pops was overjoyed to get his beautiful rifle again, and, personally, well content to drop any effort to find the perpetrator. Indeed, it seemed for a time as though nothing was being done. Bend came back to duty with discolored face, cool and steady as ever, and Jennings kept away from the B Company street, where he now had few friends. Geordie began to wonder when the yearlings would decide to summon him to Fort Clinton to settle the score still hung up between Woods and himself. It was awkward sitting at table with a man to whom he couldn't speak.
[Illustration: "THE RIFLE WAS BROUGHT IN BY A DRUM-BOY ORDERLY"]
Meantime every day and hour made him more at home in his duties and in the new life. Of course it wasn't pleasant to be everywhere hailed as "Corporal" Graham, and to be compelled, whether in ranks or out, wherever he moved, to stalk along with his shoulders braced back, his little fingers on the seams of his trousers and the palms of his hands turned square to the front, his elbows in consequence being spitted to his side like the wings of a trussed chicken; but this was the method resorted to with one and all the new-comers, whether naturally erect or not, to square the shoulders, flatten the back, and counteract the ridiculous carriage of so many—at least, of the Eastern city boys. Anglomania in exaggerated form was epidemic on the Atlantic seaboard just then, and to insure recognition in polite society it seemed to be necessary to cultivate a bow-legged, knee-sprung style of walk, with shoulders hunched forward, chest flat, elbows bent at right angles, and carried straight out from the side; these, with a vacuous expression of countenance being considered "good form"; and strenuous measures were resorted to at the Point to knock it out of such college-bred youngsters as sought to set the fashion in the corps.