At last!  All the future, glowing with heroism, exciting with the march, the attack, the battle—­ah! what after?  With something of joy and regret the comely tents, that had given them home and harbor, were taken down, folded in precise line, and carried away for storage—­for in the field the ranks were to bivouac in the open air.  Such gayety; such jokes; such bravado; and augury of the to be!  And the rumors!  Telephones, had they been invented; stenographers, had they been present in legion, could not have kept track of the momentous tales that were instantly bruited about.  General Scott was going to lead the army in person.  His charger had been seen before the headquarters.  The rebels were going to be swooped up by another such famous dash as the flank march from Vera Cruz to the plateau of Mexico!  Then came a numbing fear that Beauregard’s bragging host had fled, and that the movement would turn out a tedious stern chase to Richmond.  In the agony of all this Jack, returning from a “detail” to the quartermaster’s tent, heard his name shouted where his tent had been.  He hurried to the spot and Nick saluted him with the cry—­

“Here, Jack, are two recruits who declare they must enter Company K.”

His gun was on his arm and his knapsack on his back, but only the realization that a score of eyes were upon him saved Jack from dropping limply on the ground, as, looking in the group, he saw Dick Perley and Tom Twigg grinning ingratiatingly at him.

“Where—­how in the name of all that’s sacred did you get here?” he gasped.

“Why, we enlisted for drummers in the Caribees, but the recruiting officer told us as we were eighteen we could carry muskets if we wanted to.  We do want to, and we’re going to come into Company K.”

They looked him confidently in the face as Dick repeated this evidently long-practiced explanation.  It would not do to take them to task before the company.  Jack waited until the rest were scattered, and then, leading the boys aside, said, sternly: 

“Don’t you know you can be put in prison for this?  You have run away from your parents and guardians.  No one had a lawful right to enlist you.  I shall send for the provost marshal and have you put in prison until your parents can come and get your enlistment annulled.”

Appalled by Jack’s stern manner as much as by his words, the two lads began to whimper and expostulate tearfully.  They had trusted to his ancient friendship.  They could have gone into any other regiment, but they had enlisted to be with him.  Whatever happened, they were soldiers, and, if Tom Twigg wasn’t eighteen until September, it was perfectly lawful for him to enlist as a drummer.  Perley was eighteen in April last, and he was a soldier in spite of all that Jack could do.  Jack was deeply perplexed.  What could be done?  If he attempted to put the machinery of reclamation in order, the boys would be subjected to all sorts of vicissitudes, prisons, everything distressing and demoralizing to tender youth.