fective work under such
circumstances. Once or twice on our skirmishes we have known that we did
well, and after the wet fight toward Cherubusco our captain ventured the
statement that he could make us soldiers in six months; but today I think
he would have doubled the period, for it was plain that a veteran enemy
determined to push his lines forward would have made short work of us in
our confusion.

One thing I learned which I shall remember to my private advantage. The
next time I find myself firing from behind a snake fence I shall not
crowd forward into one of the corners. For that brings one's ears even
with the muzzles of the rifles to the right and left, and the result is
deafening.

We had delighted the foot-loose population of Dannemora, and perhaps had
tantalized the poor fellows behind the bars; certainly we gave profitable
employment to a score of professional buzzards, who turned up with their
bags to search the woods where we had been firing. As for ourselves, we
were soon on the road again and hiking in the dust, through country which
was still too deserted and unkempt, with its brush pastures and scattered
log houses, for the taste of a New Englander. At dips and turns of the
road we saw the drab column winding before us; we passed through
straggling Cadyville and came at last to the unwelcome macadam. Our feet,
used to the gravel roads, found this unyielding surface tire us more in a
mile than the other could do in five. I admit that I was thoroughly glad
when at last we saw the camping ground, turned aside into the green
grass, and pitched our tents. Some strap of the pack having slipped, the
weight had irked me more in the last hour than it had done in all the
nine days of the hike, and it was with great relief that I swung it from
my shoulders.

Another proof of the mathematical formula that Food Indulgence equals
Indigestion. A gormandizer from a neighboring squad has lately been very
savage on account of dyspepsia. Yesterday he crawled out of bed with the
sourest expression and would scarcely respond to greetings, spoke of his
stomach, and intimated that he would ask to ride with the baggage. Yet he
marched with us, preserving so gloomy a silence that Corder,
experimenting, hailed him four times before he would answer. Then he
vouchsafed, "Every step I take my stomach hurts me," and so he stalked
on, alone amid the jollity of the marching column. We had reached camp,
and were pitching tents, wh