Others who had stopped laughed and swarmed around. "Give me one!" "Me one!"
"There are more who need them."
"Oh, all right."
"No hogs here."
"Good-luck to you, elder."
The stream flowed on, some chuckling over their tracts, some silent. An officer said:
"You ought to get a pass, elder." So he came to where the Shenandoah murmured its musical name. A range of blue mountains rose beyond it. There seemed to be little going on by the river. The retreat had shifted to the west along the railroads into the Opequan valley, and he turned and rode west among low, wooded hills. It was Wednesday. They were tearing and burning the southern of the two railroads now—an endless row of bonfires of the ties, the iron rails laid across them to be heated for bending.
"'Let not your hearts be troubled.'"
A man bending over a rail drew his hand back, swore lustily, and straightened up.
"What's that? Oh!" He took the tract.