Stationed at intervals, here and there, were boys no larger than the rest, in uniforms of dark, but bright blue cloth, with red stripes on their arms, and these were officers and this was a battalion, and it was marching briskly forward to the spirited music of half a dozen drums and several shrill fifes. It was a kind of charge, across the level, gravelly parade-ground, and the boys were marching well, but right before them stood a high and frowning stone wall and it was of no use to charge against it. It could neither be broken through nor climbed and this one boy, in the middle of the line, was staring at it as if he hated it, while he marched. His feet kept time with the music and perfect pace with the feet of the other boys, but there was an angry look in his black eyes and a hot flush on his face, as if the wall had spoken to him, saying something to rouse his temper and make him answer back. What he did say, was, in a whisper that the next boy to him heard: “I will!--See if I don’t!” “What?” whispered the other boy. “I’ll go over it, some day.” “I’ll go with you, then. I can climb anything you can----” “_Halt!_” The clear-voiced command was at that instant heard, all along the line, and every boy stood still in his tracks. They were a pretty well drilled battalion. “About,--_face_!” In an instant the long, double lines stood, with their backs to the wall and facing the parade-ground. Away out in the middle of it stood the commander, the drill-master of that very remarkable battalion. He was a handsome, pleasant eyed man, of about twenty-five, dressed in a trim blue uniform, very like that of a United States Army officer. He was really a naval officer, detailed there by the Government to be practically the colonel of a regiment of pretty wild boys. He was there to teach them discipline, order, obedience, only a shade or so more strictly than if they had been cadets at West Point, or the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Other commands had been given and obeyed, and the entire force was now marching around the broad enclosure by companies, six of them, and each company was composed of boys of nearly the same height. The first company consisted of boys, the oldest of whom may have been eighteen, and the rear company was made up of little fellows as young as twelve, or even younger.