he music of the waters, as they let
their eyes wander over the lovely landscape of tree, rock, and fall.

The scene was so peaceful that it was hard to believe that they were in
the valley through whose rugged mazes the warlike tribes had streamed to
besiege the fort; and Bracy was just bending forward to pick a lovely
alpine primula, when he sniffed softly and turned to whisper to his
companions.

"Do you smell that?" he said.

"Eh? Oh, yes; it's the effect of the warm sunshine on the fir-trees."

"'Tisn't," said Drummond, laughing. "It's bad, strong tobacco. There!"
he said as the loud scratch of a match on a piece of stone rose from
just beneath their feet, as if to endorse his words, and the odour grew
more pronounced and the smoke visible, rising from a tuft of young
seedling pines some twenty feet below.

"Here, wake up, pardners," cried a familiar voice. "You're both
asleep."

"I wasn't," said a voice.

"Nor I," said another; "only thinking."

"Think with your eyes open, then. I say, any more of these niggers
coming in to make peace?"

"S'pose so. The Colonel's going to let a lot of 'em come in and help do
duty in the place--isn't he?"

"Ho, yus! Certainly. Of course! and hope you may get it. When old
Graves has any of these white-cotton-gowny-diers doing sentry-go in
Ghittah, just you come and tell me. Wake me up, you know, for I shall
have been asleep for about twenty years."

"He will. You see if he don't."

"Yah! Never-come-never," cried Gedge. "Can't yer see it's all a dodge
to get in the fort. They can't do it fair fighting, so they're
beginning to scheme. Let 'em in? Ho, yus! Didn't you see the Colonel
put his tongue in his cheek and say, `Likely'?"

"No," said one of Gedge's companions, "nor you neither."

"Can't say I did see; but he must have done."

The officers had softly drawn up their legs and moved away so as not to
play eavesdropper, but they could not help hearing the men's
conversation thus far; and as soon as they had climbed out of earshot so
as to get on a level with the top of the fall, where they meant to try
and cross the stream, descend on the other side, and work their way
back, after recrossing it at its exit into the river, Bracy took up the
conversation again.

"There," he said to Drummond, "you heard that?"

"Oh yes, I heard: but what do these fellows know about it?"

"They think," said Bracy, "and--I say," he whispered; "look!"

He pointed u