odd-looking building which
Corder guessed was a creamery. The fact being established, our boys were
greatly excited, and some filled their canteens at wholesale
prices--surreptitiously, for the thing was quite as wrong though not so
reckless as another performance I have seen, the filling of canteens at
wells. If we escape typhoid from such water it will be because of the
inoculation.

Ordered on again, our platoon was detached and sent across country to
come upon the flank or rear of any cavalry that might be lurking for us.
We sent out a squad and lost it; then the three remaining squads went on
and on and on, and grumblings became louder and louder as the men began
to suspect that the leader did not know where he was going, nor what he
was trying to do. Good David, mindful of our pact, tried in vain to cheer
the boys up; but no, they would grumble, and (as inexorably follows) made
their work the harder. It was a long three miles over stiff country, with
a fence, usually barb wire, every hundred yards--and bogs! "What made me
sore," says Knudsen at my side at this moment, "was that first swamp we
came to. It was perfectly visible, with a good dry meadow on either side
to travel in--but Jones had to bring us through it." Fence, bog, fence,
thicket, fence, small pasture with an inquisitive bull (we went across
smartly!) fence, rough climb over rocks: such was the order of our going,
till at last we heard the captain's distant whistle, and found the
remainder of the company resting comfortably by the roadside waiting for
us. But there was no soft place for the second platoon, for on we went at
once, two miles more to camp, where the other companies had long since
pitched their tents, had fed themselves, and now were streaming out
toward town to fill in the chinks in their stomachs. The best ice cream,
I am told, is at the millinery store.

For the first time since Friday I was able today to get a swim--or rather
a dip in an ice-cold stream, below a broken dam. Picturesque, so many
men's naked bodies, undressing, bathing, dressing, with the rushing
stream, the rocky bank, the overhanging trees. Then I cut my toe and had
to have it dressed at the doctor's tent, where I had a glimpse at another
side of camp life.

I met one of our fellows coming away grumbling. "My blisters were dressed
by an artilleryman who disgusted me with his profanity, and who put the
plaster on the wrong spot." But I was tended, having a more impor