Tom, the
best man that ever lived.

But to return and make a third start toward the end of our story. When
he heard that his young master had received a captaincy in the Johnson
regiment of mounted riflemen--the finest regiment, by the way, that
figured in the Second War--Big Black Burl felt his heart beginning to
glow with the martial ardor of his younger days. But when he saw the
young captain, where, in the broad green meadow in front of the house,
he was drilling his company, all mounted on fine horses and arrayed in
their gallant backwoods uniforms, then did Burlman Reynolds feel the
Fighting Nigger rising rampant within him, insomuch that he could not
endure the thought of being left behind. So he made an earnest petition
to his master to be allowed to go along, just to groom the "Cap'n's
horse," to clean the "Cap'n's gun," and to see that the "Cap'n always
got plenty to eat--mo' dan his dry rations--a squirrel, or a partridge,
or eben a fat buck, which he an' Betsy Grumbo would take a delight in
providin' fur him." And to humor the good old fellow, Captain Reynolds
bid him go and don his bear-skin rigging, shoulder Betsy Grumbo, mount
young Cornwallis, and take his place in the ranks of war. But here we
are at the end of our chapter, and not a word of the figure the Big Bear
made in the great North-west. This, though, amounts to but little--the
omission amounting to nothing.

Chapter XIX.

HOW BIG BLACK BURL FIGURED AT THE DEATH-STAKE.

Burl had made it his habit, whenever the army halted and pitched tent
for the night, to shoulder his rifle and take a solitary turn through
the neighboring woods, if haply he might not bring down a squirrel, or a
partridge, or it might be a fat buck, that the "Cap'n" might have
something juicy and savory wherewith to season and reenforce his
sometimes scanty and never very palatable rations. But toward the close
of this hazy October day, already thrice alluded to, when the army had
encamped for the night, the humor, as luck would have it, seized Captain
Reynolds to accompany his trusty forager in the accustomed evening hunt.
So they set out together, and had not penetrated a mile into the forest
to the northward, when on coming to a bushy dell they had the good
fortune to start a fine buck, which Captain Reynolds brought down and
had Burl to shoulder, proposing to take it whole to camp, that he might
share it with his men. Hardly had they turned to retrace their steps