quoth some one. "That's where the guns were
lost!" The army woke to interest. "Hanging Rock!... How're we going to
get by? That ain't a road, it's just a cow path!--Powerful good place
for an ambush--"

The column passed the rock, and leaving the pass came into open country.
Before the leading brigade was a creek, an old covered bridge now almost
burned away, and the charred ruin of a house. By the roadside lay a dead
cow; in the field were others, and buzzards were circling above a piece
of woods. A little farther a dog--a big, brown shepherd--lay in the
middle of the road. Its throat had been cut. By the blackened chimney,
on the stone hearth drifted over by the snow, stood a child's cradle.
Nothing living was to be seen; all the out-houses of the farm and the
barn were burned.

It was the beginning of a track of desolation. From Hanging Rock to
Romney the Confederate column traversed a country where Kelly's troops
had been before it. To well-nigh all of the grey rank and file the
vision came with strangeness. They were to grow used to such sights,
used, used! but now they flamed white with wrath, they exclaimed, they
stammered. "What! what! Just look at that thar tannery! They've slit the
hides to ribbons!--That po' ole white horse! What'd he done, I
wonder?... What's that trampled in the mud? That's a doll baby. O Lord!
Pick it up, Tom!--Maybe 'twas a mill once, but won't never any more
water go over that wheel!... Making war on children and doll babies and
dumb animals and mills!"

Now as hereafter the immediate effect was almost that of warmth and
rest, food and wine. Suddenly the men began to say, "Old Jack. Wait till
Old Jack gets there! Just wait till Old Jack and us gets there. I reckon
there'll be something doing! There'll be some shooting, I reckon, that
ain't practised on a man's oxen!--I reckon we'd better step up,
boys!--Naw, my foot don't hurt no more!"

A mounted officer came by. "General Jackson says, 'Press forward, men!'"

The men did their best. It was very cold, with a high, bitter wind.
Another low mountain presented itself; the road edged by banks of
purplish slate, to either hand great stretches of dogwood showing
scarlet berries, or sumach lifting torches in which colour yet
smouldered. The column came down a steep descent, crossed a creek, and
saw before it Jersey Mountain. Jersey Mountain proved ghastly; long,
high, bare, blown against by all the winds. There had been upon Jersey a
few