f it, he seemed smitten dumb with astonishment and patriotic
indignation. He stared in silence, while the dark blood rushed to
Billie's forehead, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Dan at
last found his tongue, and said: "Well, I'm durned!" If he had heard
that an army mule had been appointed to the post of corps commander, his
tone could not have had more derision in it. Afterward, he adopted a
fervid insubordination, an almost religious reluctance to obey the new
corporal's orders, which came near to developing the desired strife.

It is here finally to be recorded also that Dan, most ferociously
profane in speech, very rarely swore in the presence of his brother; and
that Billie, whose oaths came from his lips with the grace of falling
pebbles, was seldom known to express himself in this manner when near
his brother Dan.

At last the afternoon contained a suggestion of evening. Metallic cries
rang suddenly from end to end of the column. They inspired at once a
quick, business-like adjustment. The long thing stirred in the mud. The
men had hushed, and were looking across the river. A moment later the
shadowy mass of pale blue figures was moving steadily toward the stream.
There could be heard from the town a clash of swift fighting and
cheering. The noise of the shooting coming through the heavy air had its
sharpness taken from it, and sounded in thuds.

There was a halt upon the bank above the pontoons. When the column went
winding down the incline, and streamed out upon the bridge, the fog had
faded to a great degree, and in the clearer dusk the guns on a distant
ridge were enabled to perceive the crossing. The long whirling outcries
of the shells came into the air above the men. An occasional solid shot
struck the surface of the river, and dashed into view a sudden vertical
jet. The distance was subtly illuminated by the lightning from the
deep-booming guns. One by one the batteries on the northern shore
aroused, the innumerable guns bellowing in angry oration at the distant
ridge. The rolling thunder crashed and reverberated as a wild surf
sounds on a still night, and to this music the column marched across the
pontoons.

The waters of the grim river curled away in a smile from the ends of the
great boats, and slid swiftly beneath the planking. The dark, riddled
walls of the town upreared before the troops, and from a region hidden
by these hammered and tumbled houses came incessantly the yells and
f