"I wish to God we were well out of this all," he said, almost gloomily.
I was taken aback at this. Dejection was last to be looked for in this brave, stout-hearted old frontier fighter. I asked, "What is wrong?" feeling that surely there must be some cause for despondency I knew not of.
"I am wrong," he said, simply.
"I do not understand you, Brigadier."
"Say rather that they, who ought to know me better, do not understand me."
"They? Whom do you mean?"
"All these men about us--Isaac Paris, Ebenezer Cox the colonel of my own regiment, Fritz Visscher, and many more. I can see it--they suspect me. Nothing could be worse than that."
"Suspect you, Brigadier! It is pure fancy! You are dreaming!"
"No, I am very much awake, young man. You have not heard them--I have! It has been as much as flung in my face to-day that my brother Hon-Yost is a colonel with Johnson--up yonder."
The little man pointed westward with his hand to where the last red lights of day were paling over the black line of trees.