"Which is the colonel?" he asked.

"Over there--near the gray horse."

"The one lighting a cigarette?" H. O. asked.

"Yes--but I say, kiddie, he won't stand any jaw. There's not an ounce of
vice about him, but he's peppery. He might kick out. You'd better bunk."

"Better what?" asked H. O.

"Bunk, bottle, scoot, skip, vanish, exit," said the soldier.

"That's what you'd do when the fighting begins," said H. O. He is often
rude like that--but it was what we all thought, all the same. The
soldier only laughed.

A spirited but hasty altercation among ourselves in whispers ended in
our allowing Alice to be the one to speak to the colonel. It was she who
wanted to. "However peppery he is he won't kick a girl," she said, and
perhaps this was true.

But of course we all went with her. So there were six of us to stand in
front of the colonel. And as we went along we agreed that we would
salute him on the word three. So when we got near, Dick said, "One,
two, three," and we all saluted very well--except H. O., who chose that
minute to trip over a rifle a soldier had left lying about, and was only
saved from falling by a man in a cocked hat who caught him deftly by the
back of his jacket and stood him up on his legs.

"Let go, can't you," said H. O. "Are you the general?"

Before the Cocked Hat had time to frame a reply, Alice spoke to the
colonel. I knew what she meant to say, because she had told me as we
threaded our way among the resting soldiery. What she really said was:

"Oh, how _can_ you!"

"How can I _what_?" said the colonel, rather crossly.

"Why, _smoke_?" said Alice.

"My good children, if you're an infant Band of Hope, let me recommend
you to play in some other back yard," said the Cocked-Hatted Man.

H. O. said, "Band of Hope yourself"--but no one noticed it.

"We're _not_ a Band of Hope," said Noel. "We're British, and the man
over there told us you are. And Maidstone's in danger, and the enemy not
a mile off, and you stand _smoking_." Noel was standing crying, himself,
or something very like it.

"It's quite true," Alice said.

The colonel said, "Fiddle de dee."

But the Cocked-Hatted Man said, "What was the enemy like?"

[Illustration: "SO WE LED HIM ALONG TO THE AMBUSH"]

We told him exactly. And even the colonel then owned there might be
something in it.

"Can you show me the place where they are on the map?" he asked.

"Not on the map, we can't," said Dicky; "at least, I don't