ke a boy. I mean she looks like a boy. You know what I
mean, Wallis; I mean the boy that makes believe wait on him. And her
brother is in camp, got here to-night. There'll be an explanation
to-morrow, and there'll be bloodshed."

"Good-night, Colonel, and sleep it off," said Wallis, rising from the
side of a man whom he believed to be sillily drunk and altogether
untrustworthy. "You know we get after the rebs at dawn."

"I know it--goo-night, Adjutant--gawblessyou," mumbled Old Grumps.
"We'll lick those rebs, won't we?" he chuckled. "Goo-night, ole
fellow, an' gawblessyou."

Whereupon Old Grumps fell asleep, very absurdly overcome by liquor, we
extremely regret to concede, but nobly sure to do his soldierly duty
as soon as he should awake.

Stumbling wearily blanketward, Wallis found his Major and regimental
commander, the genial and gallant Gahogan, slumbering in a peace like
that of the just. He stretched himself a-near, put out his hand to
touch his sabre and revolver, drew his caped great-coat over him,
moved once to free his back of a root or pebble, glanced languidly
at a single struggling star, thought for an instant of his far-away
mother, turned his head with a sigh, and slept. In the morning he was
to fight, and perhaps to die; but the boyish veteran was too seasoned,
and also too tired, to mind that; he could mind but one
thing--nature's pleading for rest.

In the iron-gray dawn, while the troops were falling dimly and
spectrally into line, and he was mounting his horse to be ready for
orders, he remembered Gildersleeve's drunken tale concerning the
commandant, and laughed aloud. But turning his face toward brigade
headquarters (a sylvan region marked out by the branches of a great
oak), he was surprised to see a strange officer, a fair young man in
Captain's uniform, riding slowly toward it.

"Is that the Boy's brother?" he said to himself; and in the next
instant he had forgotten the whole subject; it was time to form and
present the regiment.

Quietly and without tap of drum the small, battle-worn battalions
filed out of their bivouacs into the highway, ordered arms and waited
for the word to march. With a dull rumble the field-pieces trundled
slowly after, and halted in rear of the infantry. The cavalry trotted
off circuitously through the fields, emerged upon the road in advance
and likewise halted, all but a single company, which pushed on for
half a mile, spreading out as it went into a thin l