-night, and anyhow you'll be just as comfortable there as if you'd
given your parole."

Then he went off, leaving them to the care of the corporal of the guard,
who seemed immensely amused. That relieved Jack, too. He had feared that
they would be offered their parole, and that to refuse to give it would
mean an added watchfulness on the part of their captors and jailers, as
the Blue soldiers had become. Now he was relieved from that danger. It
was lucky, he thought, that the officer was loose and careless in his
methods.

In the guard tent they found themselves alone.

"Guess you can sleep all right in here," said the corporal. "It's a
pretty comfortable prison, and there's lots of room. If you get lonely,
call the sentry. He'll talk to you."

"Thanks," said Jack. "I'm sure you're very kind."

But he was really angry at the condescending way in which the Blue
corporal spoke. As soon as he was alone with Pete he expressed his
disgust, too.

"Gee, Pete," said he, "I thought this was going to be hard. It's like
taking candy from a kid. They'll catch us if we go up to them and ask
them please to do it, just the way we did before. And that corporal was
acting as if we were little boys! I hope he finds out some time that
we're the ones that spoiled their Tryon Creek plan for them."

"Hold on," said Pete, laughing. "We haven't done it yet, Jack. Gee,
usually you're the one that keeps me from going off at halfcock. We're
not out of the woods yet, old boy."

"That's right, too, Pete, but he did get my goat. He's so cocky! Some of
our fellows are a little like that, too, I guess, but I haven't happened
to run into any of them yet."

"I was just as mad as you were, Jack, but we have got a lot to do yet
before we get back to Tom. How are we going to get out of here?"

"Cut our way out," he said, shortly. He looked back toward the flap of
the tent in disgust. "They didn't even take our knives away from us. I
wonder if they thought we were going to stay here like little lambs. And
they didn't even ask us for our parole! I'll bet someone will get
court-martialed for this--and they ought to, too."

Still looking his disgust, he began to cut through the stout canvas of
the tent. As he had suspected, there was no sentry at all in the rear of
the tent, and it was a matter of five minutes to cut a hole big enough
to let them get out.

"Here we go, Pete!" he whispered. "We can get away now any time we want
to. Might as well