on picket duty, that Manson
met with a curious adventure, and made the acquaintance of a
fellow-soldier by the name of Pullen, belonging to a Maine regiment,
whose existence, and the tie thus formed, eventually led to a sequence
of events of serious import. The enemy were encamped but a few miles
away, and that most dastardly part of warfare, the firing upon pickets
from ambush, was of nightly occurrence. Manson's beat that night was
over a low hill covered with scrub oak, and across part of a narrow
valley, through which wound a small, marsh-bordered stream. The night
was sultry, and the dampness of the swamp formed in a shallow strata of
fog, filling this valley, but not rising above the level of the uplands.
To add to the weirdness of his surroundings, the thin crescent of a new
moon threw a faint light over all and outlined the winding turns of this
mist-filled gorge. Away to the northward a belt of dark clouds emitted
frequent flashes of heat lightning, and occasional sharp reports along
the line bespoke possible death lurking in every thicket. Keeping always
in shadow, and oft pausing to listen, Manson slowly traversed his beat,
waiting only at either end to exchange a whispered "All's well!" with
the next sentry.

What a vigil! And what a menace seemed hidden behind every bush or spoke
in every sound! The faint creak of a tree as the night wind stirred the
branches; the rustle of leaves on the ground or the breaking of a twig
as some prowling animal moved about; the flight of a bird, disturbed at
its rest; the hoot of an owl on the hillside or the croak of a frog in
the swamp were all magnified tenfold by the half-darkness and the sense
of danger near. One end of his beat ended at the brook and here he
waited longest, for the sentry he met there was, like himself, hardly
out of his teens, and unused to war. A bond of fellowship sprang into
existence almost at sight, and made them brothers in feeling at once.

It was while whispering together beside this brook, and oppressed by the
suspense of night and danger near, that they detected a sound of more
than usual ill-omen, and that, the certain one that some creature had
stepped into the stream above, and was cautiously and slowly wading in
it. Hardly breathing, and bending low, the better to catch every sound
that came, they listened with beating hearts until it ceased. Once they
had detected the click of stones striking together as if moved by a
human foot and tw