"So it's to be the brigade band?" said the major. "Good enough! Just before we left the armory we were discussing our chances on music."
"Well, music is rather important," returned the colonel, "for a good band can put life into the lamest column. I once even knew a band to put life into a dead man, too. Fact!"
"Extraordinary!" murmured the major. "I've heard plenty of bands bad enough to strike a man dead, but I never happened to discover one that seemed quite up to the resurrection pitch. Perhaps, Colonel, you'll tell us about it?"
"I'm blessed if I don't," was the colonel's reply to this suggestion, "if for nothing else than punishment for the doubt implied in your tone."
"Thank you, sir," said the major politely, bestowing his lazy length upon the cushions of the window-seat, where he settled himself in all comfort. "It's a good long time since we've had a yarn from you, and I'm pleased to learn that we're in a fair way to get you started."
This judicious remark was not without its effect, for the chief pulled the major's empty chair handily near, gently deposited his feet upon it, and observed, "Well, if I've told you this incident at all, I'm sure it hasn't been within a year, so it will be as good as new." Then he turned his head and called, "Sam, come and put out that lamp," adding, "Moonlight's good enough for story-telling—and somehow lamplight makes a discord on a night like this."
"Got ev'rythin' handy, Cun'l?" inquired Sam, as the flame flickered and went out.
"Yes, everything except you," responded the commanding officer. "Pull up a chair, Sam, and kindle your disreputable old briarwood; for I'm going to yarn about a shindy in which your battery trumped the winning trick, and I shall need your corroborative testimony."
Sam brought a chair, seated himself with proper deliberation, and added his contribution to the ever-thickening cloud of smoke; those whose glasses stood in need of refilling took the precautions necessary to avert a drought; and the colonel, fixing his eyes upon the cloudless sky without, began:
"Back in '64—a matter of a fortnight or so before that little affair at Three Mile Creek, where you, Sam, got scraped across the wrist, and won that medal of yours—the 'Old Regiment' found itself at a most forsaken sort of place which was going to ruin under the name of Ashford Four Corners. Why we had been dumped down in that particular spot we neither knew nor greatly cared, for we had reached a point in soldierly indifference which enabled us to take our billet unquestioningly, though not always uncomplainingly. Even old Burleigh, our colonel, hadn't a very definite conception of our exact errand, for he told us that we had been ordered to sit down, keep our eyes open, and stay there until we were sent for,—an order which, at the time, seemed easy of execution, though rather purposeless.