e being hastily made for their march.

The old Colonel having completed his arrangements sat down by his
camp-fire with paper and pencil, and began to write; and as the men
finished their work they gathered about in groups, at first around their
camp-fires, but shortly strolled over to where the guns still stood
at the breastwork, black and vague in the darkness. Soon they were all
assembled about the guns. One after another they visited, closing around
it and handling it from muzzle to trail as a man might a horse to try
its sinew and bone, or a child to feel its fineness and warmth. They
were for the most part silent, and when any sound came through the dusk
from them to the officers at their fire, it was murmurous and fitful
as of men speaking low and brokenly. There was no sound of the noisy
controversy which was generally heard, the give-and-take of the
camp-fire, the firing backwards and forwards that went on on the march;
if a compliment was paid a gun by one of its special detachment, it was
accepted by the others; in fact, those who had generally run it down now
seemed most anxious to accord the piece praise. Presently a small
number of the men returned to a camp-fire, and, building it up, seated
themselves about it, gathering closer and closer together until they
were in a little knot. One of them appeared to be writing, while two or
three took up flaming chunks from the fire and held them as torches for
him to see by. In time the entire company assembled about them, standing
in respectful silence, broken only occasionally by a reply from one or
another to some question from the scribe. After a little there was a
sound of a roll-call, and reading and a short colloquy followed, and
then two men, one with a paper in his hand, approached the fire beside
which the officers sat still engaged.

"What is it, Harris?" said the Colonel to the man with the paper, who
bore remnants of the chevrons of a sergeant on his stained and faded
jacket.

"If you please, sir," he said, with a salute, "we have been talking it
over, and we'd like this paper to go in along with that you're writing."
He held it out to the lieutenant, who was the nearer and had reached
forward to take it. "We s'pose you're agoin' to bury it with the guns,"
he said, hesitatingly, as he handed it over.

"What is it?" asked the Colonel, shading his eyes with his hands.

"It's just a little list we made out in and among us," he said, "with
a few things