"What have you, Willie?" asked Abner, as the youth drew rein at his captain's side.
"Something the adjutant gave me," said Willie, handing a paper to Abner, who read and, carefully folding it, put it in the breast-pocket of his coat. At this moment the bugle sounded "forward."
"Fall in by my side, Willie," said Abner, and the boy wheeled into line by his captain, with Uncle Dan on the other side of him.
"Forward!" came the order, and the vast columns of men were in motion, moving on toward those black lines of the foe that lay in the distance. The far off firing of skirmishers became more rapid.
"Are you afraid?" asked Abner of the boy soldier.
"No. With you on one side and Uncle Dan on the other, I have no fear," and he smiled in such an assuring way that Abner could not doubt him.
Uncle Dan, as we have before said was an army scout, and not a regular soldier. However, he had volunteered on this occasion to accompany Abner's company. He was well mounted, his dress was half civil and half military, and his arms were his trusty rifle and a pair of holsters.
The vast columns were rapidly moving when Diggs exclaimed:
"Oh, Lordy! I feel very sick!"
"You will feel better soon," said Corporal Grimm, his file-leader.