our teeth, Jack?" said Joe,
meaning the handcuffs.

"How do you like the back to your chair?" said Ned.

"Let's see ye turn a somerset backwards, Jack."

And so forth. But Frank did not insult him in his disgrace.

Winch was by this time sufficiently sobered and humbled. He destroyed the
symmetry of the _N_ by doubling himself ingloriously over his knees and
hiding his face between them.

"Got the colic, Jack?" asked Harris--"you double up so."

Winch glared up at him a moment,--a ludicrous picture, with that writhing
face and that curious fighting-cut,--but cast down his eyes again,
sulkily, and said nothing.

"Come away, boys," whispered Frank. "Don't stay here, making fun of him.
Why do you?"

"Jack," said Ellis, "we're going to take a drink. Won't you come along
with us?"--tauntingly.

And the Blues dispersed, leaving poor Jack to his own bitter reflections.

He had learned one thing--who his friends were. On being released, he
shunned Harris and Ellis especially, for a day or two, and paid his court
to Frank.

"I am going to tell you something, Frank," said he, as they were once at
the pond-side, washing their plates after dinner. "I'm going to leave the
company."

"Leave the Blues?" said Frank.

"Yes, and quit the service. I've got sick of it."

"But I thought you liked it so well."

"Well, I did at first. It was a kind of novelty. Come, let's leave it. I
will."

"But how can you?"

"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