He led off with the long march stride of the veteran, and began threading his way through the maze of teams, batteries, herds, and marching men and stragglers with the ease and certainty born of long acquaintance with crowded camps. He dodged around a regiment here, avoided a train there, and slipped through a marching battery at the next place with a swift, unresting progress that quickly took away the boys' wind and made them pant with the exertion of keeping up.
Lieut. Bowersox left the road with his detachment and made his way across the fields, over ditches, ravines and creeks, through the thickets and the brush, and at last came out on top of Missionary Ridge at the north side of Rossville Gap."At a party?" Albin said. "She's a hundred and twelveolder than that. What does she want with parties? Don't be silly."
The off-swing mule dropped this time. "Land's sakes," ejaculated the Deacon, "he's costin' Uncle Sam $150 every time his gun cracks. It's jest sinful to be destroyin' property that way. Shorty, kin you reach me that gun o' Si's out o' the wagon? I believe I'll slip down toward the bank and see if I can't find that feller. I've bin watchin' the willers along the aidge o' the water, and I believe he's in there."The sun had gone down and the night was at hand. The train had stopped to take on a supply of wood from a pile by the roadside. Some of the boys were helping pitch the heavy sticks onto the engine, the rest ware skylarking along the tops of the cars in the irrepressible exuberance of animal spirits of boys who had had plenty to eat and were without a care in the world. Harry Joslyn had been giving exhibitions of standing on his head on the runningboard. Gid Mackall had converted a piece of rope he had picked up into a lasso, and was trying to imitate the feats he had seen performed at the last circus. Monty Scruggs, the incipient lawyer, who was proud of his elocutionary talents, had vociferated at the woods they were passing, "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "The Last Sigh of the Moor," "Absalom," "The Battle of Waterloo," and similar staples of Friday afternoon recitations. Alf Russell, the embryonic doctor, who sang a fine tenor, was rendering "Lily Dale" with much impressment, and little Pete Skidmore was "skipping" the flat hill-stones over an adjacent pond."Put on your bayonet and prod his hoss in the breast, and then give him 18 inches o' cold steel. That'll settle him. Go and lay down, Pete, I tell you. Don't disturb me. Don't you see I'm writing?"A tiny white-haired woman stood there, her mouth one thin line of disapproval. "Well," she said. "Having a good time?""Duplicate bridges," gasped Si. "Well, that is an idee."
