ly said. "We shall see each other in the
morning."

"Good night, Abe."

Frank left him. And Atwater, stretching himself upon the ground, put his
arm beneath his head, and with the fire-light on his placid countenance,
dismissed all worldly care from his mind, and slept peacefully.

XXVI.

OLD SINJIN.

At the foot of a pine tree, on a pillow of boughs, lies the old
drum-major. The blaze of the bivouac fire covers him with its glow as
with a mantle. But his face looks haggard and care-worn, and his grizzled
mustache has a cynical curl even in sleep.

At a sound he starts, opening wide those watchful gray eyes an instant,
then closing them quickly. It is a footstep approaching.

Stealthily it comes, and passes by his side. Then silence--broken only by
the crackle and roar of the flames. At length one eye of the sleeper
opens a little, and peeps; and as it peeps, it sees, sitting on the pine
roots, in the broad fire-light, with his cap before his eyes shading
them, and his eyes fixed wistfully on him, Frank, the drummer boy.

The eye that opened a little and peeped, closes again. The old fellow
begins to snore.

"Poor old man!" says the boy to himself; "how tired he looks. And to
think I have done so much to hurt his feelings! I wish I could tell him
how sorry I am; but I must not wake him."

Again the ambushed eye opens, and the little corner of the sleeper's soul
that happens to be _not_ asleep, reconnoitres. Frank is sitting there
still, faithfully watching. A stream of electric fire tingles in that
misanthropic breast, at the sight. But still the old man snores.

"I may as well lie down and go to sleep too," says Frank. And, very
softly, so as not to awaken Mr. Sinjin, he lays himself down by his side,
puts his cheek on the pillow of boughs, and keeps perfectly still.

The heart of the veteran burns within him, but he makes no sign. And
now--hark! Patter, patter, patter. It is beginning to rain.

This, then, is what the dark canopy meant, hanging so luridly over the
fire-lit forest. Patter, patter; faster, faster; dripping through the
trees, hissing in the fire, capering like fairies on the ground, comes
the midnight rain.

Sinjin thinks it about time to wake. But Frank is stirring; so he
concludes to sleep a little longer, and see what he will do.

Frank takes some pine boughs, and lays them carefully over the old man,
to shelter him