"I s'pose I've got to obey orders, and buck-and-gag you," said the Sergeant ruefully, as they were alone together in the room. "It goes against my grain, like the toothache. I'd rather you'd buck-and-gag me. But you are to blame for it yourself. You ought to have more sense than lay it into a Lieutenant-Colonel and Provost-Marshal that way. But you did give it to him fine, the old blow-hard and whisky-sucker. He's no more fit for shoulderstraps than a hog is for a paper-collar. Haven't heard anything for a long time that tickled me so, even while I was mad enough to pound you for having no more sense. I've bin aching to talk that way to him myself."Cadnan stared. "I do not understand," he said slowly."Goodness," moaned some of the boys, as they were trying to obey what seemed a' hopeless mass of directions, "do we have to do this every mornin' before we kin have breakfast? We'll starve to death before we git anything to eat. No use tellin' us to draw our stomachs in. They're clean in to our backbones now."