ned!"

These and a host of similar stories had come to Warren's ears in the
course of the campaign, and he had laughed at them as had everybody
else, for after all no man could say that actual harm had occurred as a
result of Devers's experiments. So curiously are we constituted that
when it is only the commander who is braved or his adjutant who is
ruffled, the bulk of the line can bear it with equanimity. Therefore,
while Tintop, Black Bill, Riggs, and his seniors generally could never
refer to Devers except with sympathetic swear words, there were not a
few of the officers junior in rank to his who found no little fun in all
these incidents. Like most stories in or out of the army, they were
perhaps exaggerative, but, like smoke, they could not exist without
smouldering fire. If there were any speculation about Devers in the
regiment, it was as to how he would behave if he ever did get into a
fight, or what would happen in the event of his some day squirming out
of an order on which vital issues depended. "You'll go too far yet,
Devers," said a soldier who strove conscientiously to be his friend and
counsellor, "and when you do, where will be the commander under whom you
have ever served to say a good word for you?"

And now on this fatal September morning that ominous warning was ringing
in his ears again and again. Down in the bottom of his brooding heart he
knew, and well knew, that had he obeyed, as he should have obeyed,
Warren's orders, this catastrophe could not have occurred, and that he
more than any other man on earth was responsible for the death of these
gallant fellows, who, whether they looked up to him or not, were by the
stern discipline of the service dependent on him for the expected
support. If he could realize this, how much the quicker would others be
to attach the blame to him! how much the more necessary must it be to
lose no time in diverting suspicion elsewhere! The fatal propensity to
distort or disobey, which perhaps he could have downed had Tintop or
Riggs been there, he could not resist with Warren,--an envied
contemporary, presumably new to his idiosyncrasies. Nor would he, of
course, even with him, have disobeyed could he have foreseen the fatal
consequences. That would have been risking too much. But now that he had
disobeyed, and in all probability would be held accountable for the
catastrophe, his one road to safety and to acquittal lay in saddling all
possible responsibility on som