The officers are assembled in Col. Green’s quarters.
They are celebrating a half-solemn, half-sentimental ceremony that is sometimes indulged in before an engagement. To a listener who lies in a hospital it sounds somewhat as does the medicine war-dance in the middle camp. Indeed, its results are the same, although the design is different. In the Modoc camp, the dance and medicine are for the purpose of invoking spiritual aid and stimulating the nerves of the braves to heroic deeds. In the soldier camp the intention is to celebrate the stirring scenes passed, to exchange friendship, to blot out all the personal differences that exist, and pledge fidelity for the future.
They tell stories and pass jokes and witticisms until a late hour. Before adjournment they join in singing a song that is sung nowhere else and by no other voices. The wounded man in the hospital tent hears only the refrain. It sounds melancholy, and has a saddening effect.
“Then stand by your glasses steady,
This world’s a round of lies—
Three cheers for the dead already,
And hurrah for the next who dies”—
rings out from the lips of brave men who dread not the strife of battle under ordinary circumstances; but to meet an enemy who is so thoroughly protected by chasms and caverns of rock does not promise glory that inflates men’s courage previous to battle.
Col. Tom Wright and Lieut. Eagan drop into the hospital, and, sitting down beside the wounded commissioner, assure him that they will remember Canby and Thomas, and will avenge his own sufferings. They retire with expressions of hope for his recovery. They meet Maj. Thomas and Lieut. Cranston coming
to pay a visit. Exchanges of sympathy and friendship follow, and they return to quarters to sleep before the battle, leaving behind them but one wounded man. He is peering into the future, wondering who of all the five hundred men and officers will be his first neighbor.
The camp is quiet. Midnight has passed. The relief guard has been stationed. In the corral Long Jim is sleeping. He shows no sign of any intention to escape. The guard is discouraged. The boys outside are impatient. What if Jim should not make the attempt? It would be a huge joke on the boys who planned this little side scene. Truth is, nearly everybody who is in the secret is cursing Jim for a fool that he don’t try to escape. A consultation is held. Something must be done. “I’ll fix it,” says a “little corporal.” Going to the corral he says, “Don’t go to sleep and let the prisoner get away.” Everything becomes quiet and the two guards sit down, one at each side of the corral.
“I’m so d—d sleepy I can’t keep awake,” says one to the other.
“Sleep, then. I won’t say a word,” rejoins his companion. “He can’t get away from me. He’s sleeping himself.”