Out of the gray, chilly, and silent dawn came the sharp notes of a bugle. The sound echoed among the mist-enshrouded hills, the notes vibrating in and out among the trees, and then seemed to die away in the distance.

But if any one of the several thousand prospective soldiers, sleeping the sleep of the more or less just in the tents of Camp Dixton, thought it was but a dream, those notes of the bugle, he was sadly, if not rudely, awakened when the sound came with greater insistence, as if calling over and over again:

“Get up! Get up! You must get up!”

“I say, Ned!” lazily called Bob from his bed amid the blankets on the ground under a khaki tent, “what day is it?”

“What difference does that make?” asked Ned. “What time is it?”

“You ought to know without asking, when you hear that horn,” grunted Jerry.

“Horn? Bugle you mean,” came a voice from[109] the other corner of the tent, if a conical tent, the shape used in the army, can be said to have “corners.”

“Have it your own way,” assented Jerry. “I’m anxious to know what Bob meant by asking what day it was.”

“If it’s only Sunday we’ll get a chance to rest,” explained the stout Chunky, peering out from under his blankets. For he and the others had wrapped up well, as the night had been chilly.

“Chance to rest!” exclaimed Ned. “Say, we haven’t done anything yet.”

“Done anything!” challenged Bob. “Don’t you call that drill we went through yesterday anything?”

“Just a little setting up exercise, and some marching to get you to know your hay foot from your straw foot,” commented the tall lad. “If you’re going to kick about that the second day in camp what will happen in about a week?”

“Oh, I’m not kicking,” hastily said Bob. “In fact, I’m too lame and sore to kick. And my arm feels like a boil.”

“Anti-typhus germs,” explained Ned. “You’ll be a whole lot worse before you’re better. We have to have two more injections, I understand.”

The rousing notes of the bugle, “rousing” in a double sense, again sounded, and, not without considerable grumbling and growling, in which[110] even Jerry, by the look on his face at least, seemed to join, the boys got up and prepared for another day in camp—their second.

The young volunteers, with a lot of other recruits, had reached the camp ground the day before, but there was so much confusion, so many new arrivals, and such a general air of orderly disorder about the place, that the impressions Ned, Bob, and Jerry received were mixed.

Camp Dixton was situated in one of the Southern states, and was laid out on a big plain at the foot of some hills, which, as they rose farther to the west, became sizable mountains. The plain which had, until within a short time of the laying out of the cantonments, been several large farms, consisted of level ground, with a few places where there were low rounded hills and patches of wood. It was an ideal location for a camp, giving opportunity for drills and sham battles over as great a diversity of terrain as might be found in Flanders or France.

As to the camp itself, it was typical of many that have since sprung up all over the United States to care for the large army, or armies, that are constantly being raised. And the building of Camp Dixton, like the making of all the others, had been little short of marvelous. On what had been, a few months before, a series of farms, there was now a military city.

[111]

The place was laid out like a model city. The barracks for the soldiers were, of course, made of rough wood, and few of them were painted, but there was time enough for that. A great level, center space had been set aside as a parade ground, and in the midst of this was the division headquarters. North and south of the parade ground were the long rows of “streets” lined with the wooden buildings, some of which were sleeping quarters, some cook houses and others places where the officers lived.

There were long rows of warehouses, into which ran railroad sidings; there were an ice house, an ice plant, a big laundry, a theater, and many other buildings and establishments such as one would find in a city.

As for the military units themselves, there were infantry, cavalry, machine gun companies, artillery companies, a motor corp and even a small contingent of aeroplanes.

On their arrival the day before, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with the other recruits, had been met at the railroad station by a number of officers, who looked very spick and span in their olive-drab uniforms, with their brown leather leggings polished until one could almost see his face in them.

In columns of four abreast, carrying their handbags and suitcases, the new soldiers were marched[112] up to camp, a most unmilitary looking lot, as the boys themselves admitted.

A few at a time, the lads were ushered into booths, where officers took their names, records, and other details, then they were given something to eat.

“For all the world like a sort of picnic in a new mining town,” as Ned wrote home.

Then had come a preliminary drill, and some setting-up exercises. The boys were so tired out from this, and from their journey, that no one thought of anything but bed when it was over.

“And now we’ve got to do it all over again,” murmured Bob, as he began to dress. “This is somewhat different from what we were used to at home. Home was never like this!”

“Quit your kicking!” exclaimed Jerry. “Aren&rsq............