't command it very far, therefore look sharp. Back to your post!" he
stormed as Perdue looked up from his loop-hole. "This is no time for
idleness."

"I wonder what time we eat," said Gid.

"You may never eat another bite," the Major answered.

"Then I don't reckon there's any use to worry about it, John, or Major,
I mean."

The Major returned to the floor below. "This is getting to be quite a
lark," said the Englishman. "It's beastly cruel to fight, but after all
it is rather jolly, you know."

"I'm glad you think so, sir; I can't," the Major replied. "I regard it
as one of the worst calamities that ever befell this country."

"Do you think there will be much pillage by the blacks--much burning of
houses?"

"Possibly, but to sustain their cause their commander will hold them in
some sort of check. He is looking out for the opinion of labor unions,
the scoundrel. He is too sharp to give his war a political cast."

"Ah, but to butcher is a beastly way to look after good opinion. What's
that?" the Englishman cried.

From afar, through the stillness that lay along the south road, came the
popping of rifles; and then all was still. Then came the sounds of
hoofs, and then a riderless horse dashed across the square.

"Steady, men, they are upon us!" the Major shouted, and then all again
was still. From the windows nothing could be seen down the road, and yet
the advance guard must be near, for a gun was fired much closer than
before. Now upon the square a rider dashed, and waving his hat he
cried: "They are coming through the fields!" He dismounted, struck his
horse with his hat to drive him out of danger and ran into the
court-house. The Major met him. "They will be here in no time," the man
said. "But how they got so close without my seeing them is a mystery to
me. But of course I expected to see them in the road and didn't look for
them in the fields. And that ain't all. They've got a cannon."

"What!" the Major exclaimed, and the men at the loop-holes looked back
at him.

"Yes," the scout went on, "and I know all about it. Just before the war
ended an enormous gun was spiked, dismantled and thrown into a well way
down on the Dinkler place. It was got out a good while afterward and the
spike drilled out, and since then it has been used for a Christmas gun.
Well, they've got that thing on an ox wagon, but they've got no way to
fire it for----"

The guns to the right and left of the square blurted out, then c