tant ten miles by the
road.

CHAPTER XIV.

RICHARD DOES GUARD DUTY, AND IS CAPTURED BY AN ENEMY.

Camping out was a great event at Tunbrook, and the students looked
forward to it with pleasant anticipations for weeks. The principal was
shrewd in his policy, and no one knew when it would take place till it
was announced, only a day or two before the march. By this plan he
prevented any diversion of the thoughts from the lessons. Neither did
the boys know where they were going when they started. They obeyed the
orders which were given from time to time, and even when they halted
for the night and pitched their tents, they could not find out whether
they had reached the end of the march or not. The colonel told them
that soldiers should be taught to obey orders, and cured of all
propensity to ask questions.

The tour of camp duty for the summer term had been almost a continuous
march; and during the campaign of ten days, they had travelled over a
hundred miles. Colonel Brockridge was an earnest believer in the
necessity of physical development in boys. He was of the opinion that
they could stand almost every thing, if they were regularly and
systematically inured to hardship. Weak papas and tender mammas raised
their hands with horror at the idea of having their Johnny sleep on the
ground in a tent, and stick to the camp whether it was fair weather or
foul; but the colonel could adduce hundreds of instances where boys of
puny constitutions had become strong and vigorous under this treatment.

He believed that more boys had been spoiled by being "babied" than ever
had been injured in the slightest degree by hardship--if military duty,
as it was performed at Tunbrook, could be called hardship. It was very
certain that the boys enjoyed camping out; and if a few of them sneezed
or coughed after their return, these were not regarded as fatal
symptoms.

Richard was in his element when the school was put upon its muscle.
Though nothing but a private in Company D, and subject to the orders of
his inferiors in body and mind, he performed his duty cheerfully, and
enjoyed it very much. After Nevers had been cured of his folly, there
was not another boy in the establishment who had the hardihood or the
desire to impose upon him.

Every thing was done with military order and precision on the morning
that the battalion marched from the Institute. Though the reader knows
where they were going, not an officer or a private