eying we seem to be continually edgin' up closter to
them big cliffs where the rebels are, and something's got to bust
purty soon. It's jist like it was at Tullyhomy, but old Rosecrans ain't
runnin' things now."

"But Thomas is in the center, as he was then, and we're with him," said
Si hopefully. "There's tattoo, Le's crawl in."

The other boys had been affected according to their various temperaments
by the intricate and bewildering events of the past few days. The first
day or two they were all on the tenter-hooks of expectation and anxiety.
Every bugle-call seemed to be a notice for them to rush into the great
battle. Every time they saw a regiment moving, they expected to follow
and fall into line with it. They wondered why they were not sent in
after every skirmish-line they saw advancing. When a rebel battery
opened out in the distance they girded themselves in expectation of
an order to charge it. But Si and Shorty kept admonishing them that it
would be time enough for them to get excited when the 200th Ind. was
called on by name for something; that they were not expected to fight
the whole campaign, but only to do a limited part of it, and they had
better take things easy, and save themselves for their share when it
should come to them.

It was astonishing how soon they recognized this, and settled down to
more or less indifference to things that did not directly concern their
own regiment. They were just at the age to be imitative, and the example
of the veterans around them had a strongly-repressive effect.

So, after the second or third day of the turmoil of the opening
campaign, they ceased to bother themselves openly, at least, as to why
their regiment did not move when others did, as to why they did not go
to the help of others that were fighting, and as to when they were to be
summoned to make a desperate assault upon the frowning palisades of rock
which were literally alive with rebels and belching cannon.

When the regiment was lying still they occupied and amused themselves,
as did the others, according to their several bents. The medical-minded
Alf Russell watched the movements and deportment of the Surgeons at
every opportunity, and was especially interested in everything that he
could catch a glimpse of, from feeling a man's pulse to extracting
a bullet. The lathy Gid Mackall, whose appetite did not need the
sharpening it got from the free mountain air, put in much of his time
cooking, all pos