sible variations of his rations with anything else that
he could get hold of, and devouring the product with eagerness. In spite
of Si's strict prohibition against card-playing, the sleepy headed
Jim Humphreys was rapidly, but secretly, mastering all the tricks and
mysteries of camp gambling, and becoming an object of anxiety to the
older gamesters whenever he pitted himself against them. Sandy Baker,
whose tastes ran to mechanics, "tinkered" constantly with his rifle and
equipments, studying the nature and inner workings of every part, and
considering possible improvements. Sprightly Harry Joslyn was fascinated
with the details of soldiering, and devoted himself to becoming perfect
in the manual of arms and the facings. Little Pete Skidmore was keenly
alive to all that was going on, and wanted to know everything. When he
could trust himself not to get lost from his regiment, he would scurry
over to the nearest one, to find out who they were, where they had come
from, what they had been doing, and whither they were likely to go. But
Monty Scruggs was constantly in the public eye, as he loved to be. His
passion for declamation pleased officers and men. He really declaimed
very well, and it was a reminder to them of home and the long-ago school
days to hear him "spout" the oldtime Friday afternoon favorites.

Therefore he was always called upon whenever there was nothing else
to engage the men's attention, and his self-confidence and vanity grew
rapidly upon the liberal applause bestowed on him. He was a capital
mimic, too, and daring as well, and it was not long before he began to
"take off" those around him, which his comrades enjoyed even more than
his declamations.

The llth of May, 1864, saw all the clouds of battle which had been
whirling for days in such apparently diverse directions, gathering about
the deep gorge in Rocky Face Ridge through which the railroad passed.
"Buzzard Roost," as this was named, was the impregnable citadel behind
which the rebel army had taken refuge after its rout at Mission Ridge
the previous November, and the rebel engineers had since exhausted
every effort to make it still more unassailable. The lofty mountain rose
precipitously for hundreds of feet on either side the narrow gorge, and
the last hundred feet was a sheer wall of perpendicular rock. The creek
which ran through the gorge had been dammed, so that its waters formed
a broad, deep moat before the mouth of the gorge. The top of