" cautioned Bland,
"He's red enough to fire those bales of straw. I say, Kemper, may I light
my pipe at your face?"

"Shut up, now, or he'll be puffing round here like a steam engine," said a
small dark man named Baker, "let smouldering fires lie on a day like this.
Give me a light, Dandy."

Jack Powell held out his cigar, and then, leaning back against the tree,
blew a cloud of smoke about his head.

"I'll be blessed if I don't think seven hours' drill is too much of a bad
thing," he plaintively remarked; "and I may as well add, by the bye, that
the next time I go to war, I intend to go in the character of a
Major-general."

"Make it Commander-in-chief. Don't be too modest, my boy."

"Well, you may laugh if you like," pursued Jack, "but between you and me,
it was all the fault of those girls at home--they have an idea that
patriotism never trims its sleeves, you know. On my word, I might have been
Captain of the Leicesterburg Guards after Champe Lightfoot joined the
cavalry; but such averted looks were turned from me by the ladies, that I
had to jump into the ranks merely to reinstate myself in their regard. They
made even Governor Ambler volunteer as a private, I believe, but he was
lucky and got made a Colonel instead."

Bland laughed softly.

"That reminds me of our Colonel," he observed. "I overheard him talking to
himself the other day, and he said: 'All I ask is not to be in command of a
volunteer regiment in hell.'"

"Oh, he won't," put in Dan; "all the volunteers will be in heaven--" unless
they're sent down below because they were too big fools to join the
cavalry."

"Then, in heaven's name, why didn't you join the cavalry?" inquired Baker.

Dan looked at him a moment, and then threw the apple core at a water bucket
that stood upside down upon the grass. "Well, I couldn't go on my own
horse, you see," he replied, "and I wouldn't go on the Government's. I
don't ride hacks."

"So you came into the infantry to get court-martialled," remarked Bland.
"The captain said down the valley, you'll remember, that if the war lasted
a month, you'd be court-martialled for disobedience on the thirtieth day."

Dan growled under his breath. "Well, I didn't enter the army to be hectored
by any fool who comes along," he returned. "Look at that fellow Jones, now.
He thinks because he happens to be Lieutenant that he's got a right to
forget that I'm a gentleman and he's not. Why, the day before we came up
here, he go