Then he saw that he had rolled to the very edge of a campfire. Around the fire lounged a dozen or more men in army uniforms, while one of their fellow soldiers roasted, over a bed of coals, to one side of the blaze, a whole kid. Farther on, a short line of cavalry horses were picketed.
Brinton knew he had stumbled upon an American scouting party. And he would have turned and fled, but for the hands that held him.
A beardless young lieutenant strolled forward, drawn by the exclamations of his troopers. He eyed the tattered, disreputable fugitive in strong contempt; taking in, by the uncertain glow of the fire, Brinton’s general aspect of vagrancy and the fact that he wore what had once been a cavalry uniform.
“Deserter,” at length announced the lieutenant. “What regiment?”
Brinton made no reply.
“What regiment, I said?” repeated the lieutenant sharply.
But shame and shock held Brinton speechless.
“You wear a cavalry uniform!” accused the lieutenant. “In what regiment are you a private?”
“It is a colonel’s uniform,” involuntarily answered Brinton.
But so thick was the utterance of his thirst-swollen tongue that his words were unintelligible.