Did he hear a second to his motion? He heard twenty-five seconds to it, all heaved at him together, with all the blaring strength of twenty-five pairs of elderly lungs. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby forgot parliamentary usage.
“Will we go?” whooped Sergeant Bagby, waving his pudgy arms aloft so that his mittened hands described whizzing red circles in the air. “You betcher sweet life we'll go! We'll go through hell and high water—with' you as our commandin' officer, Billy Priest.”
“You betcher! That's the ticket!” A whoop of approval went up.
“Well, then, ef that's the way you feel about it—come on!” their leader bade them; and they rushed for the door, sweeping the circuit clerk aside. “No; wait jest a minute!” He singled out the jostled Mr. Milam. “Lishy, you've got the youngest, spriest legs of anybody here. Run on ahead—won't you?—and find Father Minor. He'll be at the priest house back of his church. Tell him to jine up with us as quick as ever the Lord'll let him. We'll head down Harrison Street.”
Mr. Milam vanished. With a wave of his arm, the judge comprehended those who remained.
“Nearly everybody here served one time or another under old Nathan Bedford Forrest. The rest would 'a' liked to. I reckin this here is goin' to be the last raid and the last charge that Forrest's Cavalry, mounted or dismounted, ever will make! Let's do it regular—open up that there wardrobe-chist yonder, some of you, and git what's inside!”
Hurried old hands fumbled at the catches of a weather-beaten oaken cabinet on the platform and plucked forth the treasured possessions of the Camp—the dented bugle; the drum; the slender, shiny, little fife; the silken flag, on its short polished staff.
“Fall in—by twos!” commanded Judge Priest. “Forward—march!”
Half a minute later the gasjets that lighted Kamleiter's Hall lighted only emptiness—an empty chest in a corner; empty chairs, some overturned on their sides, some upright on their legs; an empty hall doorway opening on an empty patch of darkness; and one of Judge Priest's flannel-lined galoshes, gaping emptily where it had been forgotten.
From the street below rose a measured thud of feet on the hard-packed snow. Forrest's Cavalry was on the march!