"No, sir. But my father's been dead a long time. My mother married again, and—I've been shifting for myself of late."
"I understand," said the major, inclining his head; "but does your mother know now?"
"I write to her every month, sir. She knows I'm with the army. They would get me out if they knew where to find me, but I should enlist in another regiment under another name, so what would be the use?"
And then once more came the command attention. Again the dusty march was resumed. Again the column alternately tramped and halted. Other generals and staff-officers rode to and fro, and were curiously inspected by the rank and file. Again the New-Englanders were led off into an open field some distance from the pike, and, late in the afternoon, stacked arms and unslung knapsacks in a skirt of woods. Pots, kettles, and canteens were filled from the cisterns and wells of the neighboring farm-house, whose inmates looked on in silent disapproval, and just as the sun was sinking toward a distant line of heights some twenty miles away to the west, that a school-master in the color company said were called the Bull Run Mountains, somebody held up a warning hand and said "Listen!" There was a throb and pulsation in the heavy, heated, breathless air. A dull booming sound at irregular intervals came floating from the distant front. Men sprang to their feet from under the trees and listened eagerly, their faces paling a little; some lips uncontrollably twitching. It was the first note of the grand overture so soon to burst in the magnificence of its volume on their unaccustomed ears. Somewhere out toward that winding fringe of timber in the low ground five miles away to the south a field battery had sighted the enemy in sufficient force to warrant unlimbering and letting drive. The hostile armies were within striking distance.
For a moment the men from the land of the Puritan listened in awed silence. There had been a sharp encounter down that way two days before between the leading division and a concealed enemy, and rumor had it that many were killed and wounded, but the ambulances had been sent another way, and this brigade saw none of them. Over toward the roofs of Centreville a Western regiment sent up a cheer. Somewhere through the woods, down toward the right, the uproarious "Hi, hi" of the Zouaves, like the yelp of a pack of prairie wolves, rose swift from wing to wing, and in the midst of the distant clamor the major's quiet voice fell on Snipe's listening ears, and the lad started, gulped down some strange feeling as of faintness and nausea that had stolen over him, and pulled himself together.
"The horses? Yes, sir, they'll be through feeding in ten minutes."
"Very well. I'm to go forward with four companies at dusk. You needn't, if you wish to write—or anything."
But when the major led that silent detachment into the winding bridle-path through the trees, following the lead of a young staff-officer who rode jauntily ahead, Snipe Lawton followed close at his commander's heels.
