the Invincibles,
from their camp, saw nothing.

"I suppose the colonel was right," said Happy Tom, "and this must have
been a sort of prologue. But if the prologue was so hot what's the play
going to be?"

"Something hotter," said Harry.

"A vague but true answer," said Langdon.

Yet the delay was long. They lay all that day and all that night along
the banks of Bull Run, and a hundred conflicting reports ran up and down
their ranks. The Northern army would retreat, it would attack within a
few hours; the Southern army would retreat, it would hold its present
position; both sides would receive reinforcements, neither would receive
any fresh troops. Every statement was immediately denied.

"I refuse to believe anything until it happens," said Harry, when night
came. "I'm getting hardened to this sort of thing, and as soon as my
time off duty comes I'm going to sleep."

Sleep he did in the shot-torn woods, and it was the heavy sleep of
exhaustion. Nerves did not trouble him, as he slept without dreams and
rose to another windless, burning day. The hours dragged on again,
but in the night there was a tremendous shouting. Johnston, with eight
thousand men, had slipped away from Patterson in the mountains, and the
infantry had come by train directly to the plateau of Manassas, where
they were now leaving the cars and taking their place in the line of
battle. The artillery and cavalry were coming on behind over the
dirt road. The Southern generals were already showing the energy and
decision for which they were so remarkable in the first years of the
war. Johnston was the senior, but since Beauregard had made the
battlefield, he left him in command.

The Invincibles were moved off to the left along Bull Run, and were
posted in front of a stone bridge, where other troops gathered, until
twelve or thirteen thousand men were there. But Harry and his comrades
were nearest to the bridge, and it seemed to him that the situation was
almost exactly as it had been three nights before. Again they faced
Bull Run and again they expected an attack in the morning. There was
no change save the difference between a ford and a bridge. But the
Invincibles, hardened by the three days of skirmishing and waiting,
took things more easily now.

They lay in the woods near the steep banks, and the batteries commanded
the entrance to the bridge. The night was once more hot and windless
and they were so quiet that they could