rkness, the clank of gun wheels, and now
and then the neigh of a tired horse.

The crash of a volley and another volley which answered came from his
right, and then there was a spatter of musketry, stray shots following
each other and quickly dying away. Talbot saw the flash of the guns, and
the smell of burnt gunpowder came to his nostrils. He made a movement
of impatience, for the powder poisoned the pure air. He heard the shouts
of men, but they ceased in a few moments, and then farther away a cannon
boomed. More volleys of rifle shots and the noise of the cheering or its
echo came from his left; but unable to draw meaning from the tumult, he
concluded at last it was only the smouldering embers of the battle and
continued to walk his voluntary beat with steady step.

The night advanced and the rumbling in the encampment behind him did not
cease at all, the sounds remaining the same as they were earlier in the
evening--that is, the drum of many feet upon the earth, the rattle of
metal and the hum of many voices. Talbot concluded that the men would
never go to sleep, but presently a light shot up in the darkness behind
him, rising eight or ten feet above the earth and tapering at the top to
a blue-and-pink point. Presently another arose beside it, and then
others and still others, until there were thirty, forty, fifty or more.

Talbot knew these were the campfires and he wondered why they had not
been lighted before. At last the men would go to sleep beside the
cheerful blaze. The fires comforted him, too, and he looked upon the
rosy flame of each, shining there in the darkness, as he would have
looked upon a personal friend. They took away much of his lonely
feeling, and as they bent a little before the wind seemed to nod to him
a kind of encouragement in the dangerous work upon which he had set
himself. He could see only the tops of these rosy cones; all below was
hidden by the bushes that grew between. He could not see even the dim
figure of a soldier, but he knew that they were there, stretched out in
long rows before the fires, asleep in their blankets, while others stood
by on their arms, ready for defense should the pickets be driven in.

The troublesome skirmishers seemed to be resting just then, for no one
fired at him and he could not hear them moving in the woods. The
scattering shots down the creek ceased and the noises in the camp began
to die. It seemed as if night were about to claim her own at last an