"But it's only ten miles from home!"
The shoulder of the man behind him sent Parsons sprawling. He gathered himself up and leaped into his place by Adams's side. His step was light.
"Ten miles from home! We're only ten miles from home!"—he said it as though the evil spirits which had beset him had been exorcised. He saw the little whitewashed farmhouse, the yellowing wheat-fields beside it; he saw his mother working in the garden, he heard her calling.
Presently he began to look furtively about him. If he could only get away, if he could get home, they could never find him. There were many places where he could hide, holes and caverns in the steep, rough slopes of Big Round Top, at whose foot stood his mother's little house. They could never find him. He began to speak to Adams tremulously.
"When do you think we'll camp?"
Adams answered him sharply.
"Not to-night. Don't try any running-away business, boy. 'Tain't worth while. They'll shoot you. Then you'll be food for crows."
The boy moistened his parched lips.
"I didn't say anything about running away," he muttered. But hope died in his eyes.
It did not revive when, a little later, they camped in the fields, trampling the wheat ready for harvest, crushing down the corn already waist-high, devouring their rations like wolves, then falling asleep almost on their feet.