s mine, I saw him first! I've marked the rosy-cheeked boy for
mine. Keep away the rest of you fellows!' I feel as if I'd been through
a battle. No more marshes for me."

Some of the provident produced bottles of oil of pennyroyal. Sergeant
Daniel Whitley, who rode a giant bay horse, was one of the most
foreseeing in this respect, and, after the boys had used his soothing
liniment freely, the fiery torment left by the mosquito's sting passed
away.

The sergeant seemed to have grown bigger and broader than ever. His
shoulders were about to swell through his faded blue coat, and the hand
resting easily on the rein had the grip and power of a bear's paw. His
rugged face had been tanned by the sun of the far south to the color of
an Indian's. He was formidable to a foe, and yet no gentler heart beat
than that under his old blue uniform. Secretly he regarded the young
lieutenants, his superiors in military rank and education, as brave
children, and often he cared for them where his knowledge and skill were
greater than theirs or even than that of colonels and generals.

"God bless you, Sergeant," said Dick, "you don't look like an angel, but
you are one--that is, of the double-fisted, fighting type."

The sergeant merely smiled and replaced the bottle carefully in his
pocket, knowing that they would have good use for it again.

The regiment after salving its wounds resumed its watchful march.

"Do you know where we're going?" Pennington asked Dick.

"I think we're likely if we live long enough to land in the end before
Vicksburg, the great Southern fortress, but as I gather it we mean
to curve and curl and twist about a lot before then. Grant, they say,
intends to close in on Vicksburg, while Rosecrans farther north is
watching Bragg at Chattanooga. We're a flying column, gathering up
information, and ready for anything."

"It's funny," said Warner thoughtfully, "that we've already got so far
south in the western field. We can't be more than two or three hundred
miles from the Gulf. Besides, we've already taken New Orleans, the
biggest city of the South, and our fleet is coming up the river to meet
us. Yet in the East we don't seem to make any progress at all. We lose
great battles there and Fredericksburg they say was just a slaughter of
our men. How do you make it out, Dick?"

"I've thought of several reasons for it. Our generals in the West are
better than our generals in the East, or their generals in the East ar