"When we got outside the store door again, Bill Shutts remarked, as he gazed at Chambers in honest admiration 'Well, old pard, if I had your cheek I'd never work another lick.' 'It's all done by a slight turn of the wrist, as the magician says,' said Bob; 'anybody can do it that knows how. Now, let me tell you how to get that letter of yours. Just go over to the quarters an' wash your face an' hands for a disguise, black your boots, button up your jacket, brace up, an' look brave; and then go back to the store--by that time the old man's forgot you ever asked for a letter--then execute a flank movement on him, like I did; be sure to salute an' call him kernel, an' you'll get a letter if he has to write you one.'
"An' by following Bob's advice Bill got his letter; an' it tickled him so't he called us together, an' we went down to old mother Bangs's, an' he set up the drinks on it, 'cause he said that trick that Bob learnt him was worth a whole lot, if not more."
"How was it, Tom, that when we were buying our outfit at Leavenworth we forgot to get a compass? That is a pretty useful thing in travelling across the prairie, where there is no road or trail to follow?"
"Well," replied Tom, "it would be handy to have a compass, but we haven't got one and so we'll have to do the next best thing, and thank the Lord I have a good watch to run our course by."
"What!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean that you can tell the points of the compass by a watch?" And Jack chimed in: "I never heard of the like."
"If you live long enough, young fellows, you may find out that there are some other things you never heard of. Look here, I'll explain to you how it's done," and Tom pulled his big silver watch out of his pocket, opened it, and put it on the table.
"You turn the watch so that the hour-hand points to the sun; then measure just half-way to the figure twelve on the dial in the shortest direction, and that will be south. Of course, the opposite point will be north, and you can tell east or west.
"If you get it firmly fixed in your mind that, with the hour-hand of a watch pointing to the sun, half-way between that and the figure twelve in the shortest direction on the dial is south, you can always get the points of the compass when the sun is shining."