eaming band. And then I knew--Champlain! It was the lake, turning
faintly silver further north or further south. What I had thought to be a
cloud was distant haze. And above it hung, at first unnoticed, the faint
blue silhouettes of Mansfield and its neighbor peaks.

As we marched down the slope my neighbors, mindful of what was to come,
said "Gee! Suppose we are to climb up this again?" But apprehension was
soon lost in the interest of the town we now entered, whose great
buildings (in which each squad threatened to leave its most obstreperous
member) had been visible for some distance. Dannemora seems to be a town
whose prosperity, in this out of the way place, depends solely upon the
great prison that stands in its midst. We marched along beneath the huge
wall that forms one side of the main street; it rose in places fifteen
feet above our heads. Dust! dust! A school was let out; its scholars came
streaming uphill to watch us, and to tag along beside us even after we
had turned away from the great hospital of the prison, and were once more
amid farms. Other school children were waiting for us along the road. We
saw very little of the buzzard in this population; they handed or threw
us apples, and the boys even undertook to fill canteens--the same old
trick which the officers failed to detect.

Still we tramped on amid the dust which rose around us; if Saturday's was
the wet hike, this was the dusty one. As we neared a crossroad we were
given the command "Attention!" So we came to the right shoulder and
straightened our ranks, that we might look better as we passed the
General. Another quarter mile (we were an hour beyond Dannemora now) and
the familiar motorcyclist, our messenger in so many skirmishes, darted by
us to reach the captain. We grunted. And then "Squads left--march,
company--halt!" We found ourselves facing the wall of bushes. "Prepare to
load!" Who, we wondered, would accidentally fire now? Ah, the distant pop
was from the next company, and we heard its men angrily jeering their
clumsy mate.

Squads-left again, and now we were starting back on the way that we had
come. Uphill of course, but we feared that worse was to follow, as we
remembered the ridge that we passed some little distance back, and
recalled the advantages it offered for defence. To be sure, J Company was
now nearest it and should secure it, if the enemy were not too close. But
a burst of shooting, not very far away, apprised us that they