Hannibal brayed again and switched his rope tail. His usual stolid temperament showed signs of wear.
"Airin' th' lungs that way sounds like a critter gittin' set to make war medicine. A hardtail don't need no hardware but his hoofs to make a man regret knowin' him familiar-like—"
Drew had reached another wagon.
"Ordnance? Buford's?" He repeated the well-worn question without hope.
"Yeah, what about it?"
For a moment the scout thought he had not heard that right. But Kirby's crow of delight assured him that he had been answered in the affirmative.
"What about it?" Boyd echoed indignantly. "We've been huntin' you for hours. General Buford wants...."
The man who had answered Drew was vague in the dusk, to be seen only in the limited light of the lantern on the driver's seat. But they did not miss the pugnacious set of knuckles on hips, nor the truculence which overrode the weariness in his voice.
"Th' General can want him a lotta things in this heah world, sonny. What the Good Lord an' this heah mud lets him have is somethin' else again. We've been pushin' these heah dang-blasted-to-Richmond wagons along, mostly with our bare hands. Does he want 'em any faster, he can jus' send us back thirty or forty fresh teams, along with good weather—an' we'll be right up wheah he wants us in no time—"
"The boys are out of ammunition," Drew said quietly. "And they are tryin' to dig out the Yankees."