"Yes, and quit the service. I've got sick of it."
"Well, I did at first. It was a kind of novelty. Come, let's leave it. I will."
"Easy enough. I am under age, and my father 'll get me off."
"I should think you would be ashamed to ask him to," Frank could not help saying, with honest contempt.
Jack was not offended this time by his plainness, for he had learned that those are not, by any means, our worst friends, who truly tell us our faults.
"I don't care," he said, putting on an air of recklessness. "I ain't going to lead this miserable dog's life in camp any longer, if I have to desert"--lowering his voice to a whisper; "we can desert just as easy as not, Frank, if we take a notion."
"I, for one," said Frank, indignantly, "shan't take a notion to do anything so dishonorable. We enlisted of our own free will, and I think it would be the meanest and most dishonest thing we could do to----"
"Hush!" whispered Jack. "There's Atwater; he'll hear us."
At midnight the drummer boy was awakened by a commotion in the tent.
"Come, Frank," said some one, pulling him violently, "we are going to have some great fun. Hurrah!"
Frank jumped up. The boys were leaving the tent. He had already suspected that mischief was meditated, and, anxious to see what it was, he ran out after them.
He found the company assembled in a dark, mysterious mass in the street before the row of tents.
"What does it all mean?" Frank inquired of his friend Atwater, whom he found quietly listening to the conspirators.
"A little fun with the Gosling, I believe," said Atwater, with a shrug. "They'd better let him alone."
"The Gosling" was the nickname which the Blues had bestowed on their captain.
After a hurried consultation among the ringleaders, the company marched to the tent where the Gosling slept. Only Atwater, Frank, and a few others lingered in the rear.
"I hope they won't hurt him," said Frank. "Ought we not to give the alarm?"
"And get the lasting ill-will of the boys?" said Atwater. "We can't afford that."
The captain's tent was surrounded. Knives were drawn. Then, at a concerted signal, the ropes supporting the tent were cut. At the same time the captain's bed, which made a convenient protuberance in the side of the tent, was seized and tipped over, while tent-pole, canvas, and all, came down upon him in a mass.