campment
before marching. The wronged man did not appear to take the refusal very
much to heart, however: he merely remarked to one of the others, loud
enough for the Lieutenant to have heard if he had been very observant,
that "he didn't care two cusses for the leave: he would go off when he
liked and stay as long as he liked, and he should like to see anybody
smart enough to stop him."

At the mantel, taking a quiet drink with half a dozen civilian friends
who had been admitted behind the tables, stood a tall, soldierly-looking
man, pointed out by Woodruff as Lieut. Colonel Burns. Unaccountably, he
wore no straps on the shoulder, his blue blouse looking as if it was
thrown on for use instead of show, and his whole demeanor that of a man
who, if opportunity should only be given him, would be a soldier. He had
his sword-belts at the waist, however, and also wore his sword, as if he
had some indefinite idea that something would thereby be gained in an
_appearance_ of efficiency for the regiment.

"Have you seen almost enough?" asked Lieutenant Woodruff, of the two
citizens.

"Quite enough!" said both in a breath.

"Well, time is just up," said the Lieutenant. "And in good time comes
the drum-beat for evening parade. Come along, and see what it is like. I
must leave you, but you can see the display without me."

A couple of snare-drums were rattling somewhere among the tents, and the
shrill notes of a light infantry bugle sounded. Lieut. Colonel Burns
buckled his sword belts a little tighter and straightened himself to a
soldierly bearing, as he left the room with his friends. A sergeant took
down the guidons, and all, except the one Lieutenant at the desk and two
or three soldiers who did not consider the call as of sufficient
consequence, followed them down to the parade-ground in front of the
camp. Col. Egbert Crawford seemed to be like the two or three soldiers
named, and not to consider the call of consequence enough to demand any
attention on his part; for he did not, at least during the stay of Smith
and Brown, emerge from the privacy of the inner room or make any
movement to superintend the "dress parade."

That "dress parade" completed the experience of Smith and Brown; and it
completed, at the same time, their knowledge of the numbers and
efficiency of the Two Hundredth Regiment that was "almost ready to
march." In squads of from ten to twenty-five, the soldiers gathered from
their slovenly tents, until t