t.

(In West Sciota? At any rate, an inhabited crossroads.) I am lying on my
back in the wet grass, while the captain explains that the sound at a
little distance, as of a lot of carpenters nailing at the boarding of a
new house, is our patrols firing at a party of cavalry that is opposing
our advance.

We left our tents buttoned, and started out in gray weather. I was glad
that I had, with bayonet and fingers, dug a shallow ditch along the upper
side of our pup and across the front, when this light rain began. It is
not bad, and so long as I have my pack between me and the ground I cannot
get chilled. Again and again I have used it so, and have seen fellows at
halts napping all around me. Truly the pack is a life saver.--"Fall in!"

(North of Sciota, on the road to Mooers, near crossroads 79, the weather
now dry.) We are resting after a skirmish, and as my position is somewhat
more comfortable, since I am lolling in a ditch instead of lying on my
back, perhaps these jottings will be more legible than the last. The
skirmish went thus.

We left our resting-place at crossroads 72, and followed the popping of
our advance guard, I company, while at the same time we heard at a
greater distance the heavy firing of the first battalion as it fought its
way westward toward Altona, we ourselves going north. As we advanced
beyond a corner, suddenly fire from the left broke out upon the column
behind us. At once we were halted, and Captain Kirby, ranging down the
line of the company, picked out our squad and sent us at the double over
the fence and into the field north of the road that we had passed, our
enemy being in a thick wood to the south of it. Here we streamed along,
poor Corder as usual soon being pumped and dropping behind, while eager
David was only kept from outdistancing the rest by a sharp word from
Knudsen. We scrambled through a wire fence, then in a pasture with
scattered heavy cedars we assembled behind a tree to survey the ground,
all of us pouring out our advice upon poor Bann--to go to the road, to go
further west, to plunge into the woods and attack the enemy by ourselves.
This last from David, who is keen at every fight. Someone urging to send
a message back to the captain, Bann got out the brand-new despatch book
and pencil which since the conference this morning had been sticking out
of his pocket, but put them up again for lack of something definite to
say. So he took us across the road and into the fie