‘Load!’ ordered the corporal above. ‘You four,’ addressing his men, ‘follow that boat along the bank, and see if you can discover any signs of life in her. Fire at discretion.—You, Whitson,’ to the man who had first caught sight of the boat, ‘stay here and show me where you think that boat came from. It was not in sight two or three minutes ago.’ Whitson pushed through the trees to the verge of the bank. ‘It seemed to come out of the bushes just here,’ he said, peering over; ‘but I don’t see anything.’ ‘You don’t suppose the fellow is going to rise right up and look at you, do you?’ inquired the corporal with fine scorn, adding: ‘Did you hear anything?’ ‘Not a sound,’ admitted Whitson. ‘Then it’s pretty certain there was no one in her,’ said the corporal. ‘Most likely she got caught on a snag and turned in here, broke loose, and drifted off again. The general was right—the fellow has either gone up the bank or struck inland. All the same, we’d better search the bank hereabouts.’ But the projecting roof of the hole offered a sure protection to the boys; and though more than once they could distinguish the trampling of the feet of the soldiers above their heads, their hiding-place remained undiscovered, and presently the search was discontinued. ‘It’s no use,’ said the corporal. ‘He is not here. Never was, I should say. We ‘re only wasting time. Let us go back to camp.—Hello! What do you suppose that is?’ _That_ was Ephraim’s cap, which, supported by its own lightness and the water beneath it, hove in sight, floating gracefully down stream, some forty yards away. Ephraim saw it at the same moment, and softly whispered to Lucius to come and see the fun. ‘It looks like a cap,’ answered Whitson, peering through the gloom. ‘Blamed if I don’t believe it is a cap.’ ‘With a head inside it?’ pursued the corporal, also doing his best to see. ‘I can’t say. Shall I try and find out?’ The corporal nodded, and Whitson, throwing forward his rifle, fired. The ball struck the water some feet beyond the cap, which still moved unconcernedly along. ‘Missed!’ cried the corporal, firing his own rifle immediately afterwards. ‘That’s better. That wiped your eye.’ His bullet had struck the cap slantwise on the crown, turning it over, so that it immediately filled and sank to the bottom. ‘My!’ whispered Ephraim gleefully. ‘It’s ez good ez shootin’ et bottles et a fair.’ ‘I guess it was only a cap,’ said the corporal, reloading his rifle; ‘but we can’t be sure. We’ll report the circumstance, anyhow.—Hello! What did you find?’ This to the four men who had returned. ‘No one in the boat, corporal,’ answered one of them. ‘We followed her down to the bend, and she ran on a shoal and turned over on her side. We could see right into her.’ ‘We’ll report that too,’ said the corporal with military brevity.—‘Fall in! Squad, attention! Shoulder arms! Slope arms! Quick march!’