“I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” some one shouted.
“Did you hear that?” asked Ned of Jerry, for the sound of the alarm in the night had penetrated to their barracks, and several had awakened.
“I’ve got him! I’ve got him! He mustn’t get away!” was shouted again, and then a glimmer of the truth began to dawn on Jerry.
“Corporal of the guard, post number seven!” was shouted from somewhere out on the fields about the camp.
By this time all in the immediate vicinity of the barracks, where Ned, Bob and Jerry had their bunks, were aroused. Lights were set aglow, and Ned, looking over to a bed which had been temporarily placed for Professor Snodgrass, cried:
“Yes. And I guess he’s the one who’s got him!” added Jerry with a laugh. “I think it was his voice that caused the disturbance. Perhaps we’d better go out and see what it all is. If it’s some one who doesn’t know the professor they might take him for a spy, and use him roughly.”
“Who do you suppose he’s caught?” asked Bob. “Do you think it can be Crooked Nose or one of his cronies?”
“I don’t imagine it’s anything as dramatic as that,” returned Jerry. “I rather think the professor has been bug-hunting again, and he has found his quarry most unexpectedly, which has caused his jubilation.”
And this they found to be true. When they had slipped on a few garments and their shoes and had gone outside, they found Professor Snodgrass walking along between two sentries. On the faces of the soldiers were puzzled looks, but on that of the little scientist was a gentle and satisfied smile, as though the world had used him very well indeed.
“I have it, boys!” he exclaimed, as he caught sight of his three friends. “It is one of the rarest of its kind. I caught it----”
“He caught it on my post, whatever it is,” said one of the sentries. “And he nearly scared my supper out of me. Talk about snakes! I’d rather see ’em any night!”
“What did you find?” asked Jerry of the professor.
“A new kind of centipede,” was the answer, and the professor showed, in a glass-topped box, a horrible, many-legged insect that was squirming around, trying to get out.
“Oh, landy!” cried the sentry who had apprehended the little scientist, peering into the box. “And to think one of them was loose on my post! Say, how long do you live after one bites you?” he asked anxiously. “There might be more where I have to walk, and if one nips me----”