"That's what I'd call Profane History," said the Lieutenant, as the Captain resumed his load.
"Well, boys! Go into the Third Cavalry four months, as I did; and if any of you swear less than I do, I'll treat."
"One fault with the story, Captain," said another Lieutenant, detaining him; "you make no application."
"I didn't intend it as a sermon; what application would you make?"
"A very practical one, Captain. I would apply half a quarter to one man, half a quarter to another. Make a distribution among your friends."
The Captain, somewhat sold, told them to send down a detail, and he would distribute.
The detail returned, well loaded, having performed their duty faithfully, with the exception of trimming Sambo's fore-quarter "mighty close," as he phrased it.
That bullock turned out to be merely the first course of a grand flesh carnival, which lasted the remaining two days of the stay on Snicker's summit. The wood and fields almost swarmed with rabbits and quails; but although furnishing amusement to all, they were but titbits for the delicate. By some remissness of vigilance under the stringent orders, cattle, sheep, and hogs were slaughtered on all sides. There was an abundance of them; the farmers in the valley having driven them up, as was their custom, for the pasture and mast to be found in the fields and woods. Half wild, the flavor of their flesh was a close approach to that of game. As may be supposed, where licence was untrammelled, there was much needless slaughter. Fine carcasses were left as they fell, with the loss only of a few choice cuts. As the beasts, especially the pigs, which looked like our ordinary porkers well stretched, could run with great speed, the chase was amusing as well as exciting. Red breeches and blue fraternized and vied with each other in the sport, to quarrel, perhaps, over the spoils.
Few will fail to carry to their homes recollections of that pleasing episode in the history of the Regiment: the feasts of fat things, the space-built inclosures around the camp-fires that sheltered them from the blast, and were amphitheatres of amusement—recollections that will interest many a future fireside, destined, with the lapse of time, to become sacred as family traditions of the Revolution. And have they not equal claims? The Revolution founded the country; this struggle must save it from the infamous