can give important evidence. I
will take the responsibility. Have Rix placed in charge of the guard at
once."

And when the corporal reappears it is with a file of men, armed with
their Springfields. Between them Rix is marched away, a scared and
haggard-looking man.

For a moment the officers stand in silence, gazing after him. Then the
captain speaks.

"That man could tell a story, without deviating a hair's-breadth from
the truth, that would astonish the commonwealth of Massachusetts, or I
am vastly mistaken in him. Does anybody know his antecedents?"

"He was our first quartermaster-sergeant, that's all I know of him,"
answers Mr. Hunnewell; "but he was in bad odor with the colonel, I
heard, long before Cedar Mountain. He would have 'broken' him if it had
not been for Hollins's intercessions."

"I mean his antecedents, before the outbreak of the war, not in the
regiment. Where did Hollins get him? _Why_ did he get him, and have him
made quartermaster-sergeant, and stick to him as he did for months,
after everybody else was convinced of his worthlessness? There is
something I do not understand in their relations. Do you remember, when
we were first camped at Meridian Hill, Hollins and Rix occupied the same
tent a few days, and the colonel put a stop to it? Hollins was furious,
and tried to raise a point against the colonel. He pointed to the fact
that in half the regiments around us the quartermaster was allowed to
have his sergeant for a tent-mate if he wanted to; and if Colonel
Raymond had any objections, why didn't he say so before they left the
state? He had lived with him a whole month in camp there, and the
colonel never said a word. I confess that some of us thought that Rix
was badly treated when he was ordered to pitch his tent elsewhere, but
the colonel never permitted any argument. I heard him tell Hollins that
what was permissible while we were simply state troops was not to be
considered precedent for his action when they were mustered into the
national service. In his regiment, as in the well-disciplined regiments
of any state, the officers and enlisted men must live apart."

"But Hollins claimed that Rix was a man of good birth and education, and
that he was coaching him for a commission," interposes one of the group.

"That was an afterthought, and had no bearing on the case anyway. I know
that in this, as in some other matters, there were many of us who chafed
a little at the idea of regular