er outpost work. Then one of the staff reported a speech Tyler
had made when his troops rushed over the empty rebel breastworks and
forts around Centreville. His officers were discussing the probable
forces Beauregard had behind the crooked stream beyond.

"I believe we've got them on the run," Tyler said, exultingly, "from
what we see here. I tell you the great man of this war is the man that
plants the flag at Manassas, and I'm going through to Richmond
to-night."

"Not much comfort in knowing we've got such a fool for a commander,"
Jack cried, thinking of the disgrace of the day before and of the small
chance the regiment had under such a chief to redeem its prestige on the
morrow. All personal griefs, everything but the pending battle, were
driven from the men's minds as the signs of the momentous work of the
morrow accumulated. The hospital corps was up in force. The yellow flag
floated from an immense tent near the roadway. A great _cortege_ of
general officers rode away from McDowell's quarters about ten in the
evening. The haversacks were filled with three days' cooked rations. One
hundred rounds of ammunition to a man were dealt out to each company.
Everything not absolutely necessary was ordered to the company wagons.

The talk in the camp that night was of home--of anything and everything
but the dreadful to-morrow, so long looked forward to with eager hope,
now regarded with uncertainty that was not so much fear as the memory of
the panic at Blackburn's Ford. Jack was provided with a large atlas map
of Virginia, and with the bits of information given by Dick he was able
to conjecture the probable plan of the next day. The cronies of Company
K listened in delight to his exposition of the action.

"Here," he said, "is the Bull Run. It makes two big elbows eastward
toward us--one about four miles to the northwest of us, the other about
eight miles to the southeast of that, and about four miles from our
right hand here! The rebel we quizzed yesterday says that there are five
fords between the Warrenton pike bridge--that's just ahead of us yonder
at the end of the road we are on--the last one is McLean's Ford, at the
very knuckle of the elbow that is crooked toward us a mile west of where
we were yesterday. That is near the railway, which it is Beauregard's
business to fight for and our business to get, for then he will have to
fall back near Richmond to feed his army. Now from the railway where it
crosses Bul