lesson would be
followed by others on the road to the mill, the path to the stable, and
the way to the spring. If the old man had not already been as angry as
he could be, his temper would have risen.

After a lot of toilsome plodding through the rain and mud which the
passing wagons had made fathomless, they came to the top of a high hill,
from which they could look down on a turbid sweep of yellow water, about
half a mile away, which filled nearly the whole valley.

The reason of delay was at once apparent. The insignificant stream had
suddenly become an almost impassable obstacle. Men were riding carefully
across the submerged bottom land, prodding with poles, to pick out
crossings. Others were digging down approaches to what seemed promising
crossings, and making rude bridges across gullies and smaller streams
that intervened.

It seemed that the fresh young Aid with whom the boys had the encounter
the day before had in some mysterious way gained charge of the advance.
He had graduated into the Engineer Corps from West Point, and here was
an opportunity to display his immense knowledge to the glory of himself
and the Engineers and the astonishment of those inferior persons who
were merely officers of cavalry, infantry and artillery. Now he would
show off the shrewd expedients and devices which have embellished the
history of military engineering since the days of Hannibal and Julius
Cesar.

That everybody might know who was doing all this, the Aid was riding
back and forward, loudly commanding parties engaged in various efforts
over more than a quarter of a mile of front. He had brought up the
pontoon-train, and the pontoniers were having a hard time trying to
advance the boats into the rushing waters. It was all that the men could
do to hold them against the swift current. If a pole slipped or went
down in a deep hole the men holding it would slip and probably fall
overboard, the boat would whirl around and drift far out of its place,
requiring great labor to bring it back again, and bringing down a
torrent of curses from the young Lieutenant on the clumsiness of "the
Stoughton bottles" who were pretending to be soldiers and pontoniers.
He was feeling that every word of this kind showed off his superior
knowledge to those around. Some of the men were standing waist-deep in
the water, trying to fasten lines to trees, to hold in place the boats
already stationed and being held there by arms straining at the pole