"What is it?" he whispered to St. Clair, who lay a little higher than he.
"It's a lot of our men crossing the ford. Raise up and you can see them walking in the water. I take it that the general is going to put a force in the bushes and trees on the other bank to sting the Northern army good and hard before it pushes home the main attack."
Standing up Harry saw men wading Bull Run in a long file, every one carrying a rifle on his shoulder. In the hot dim night they looked like lines of Indians advancing through the water to choose an ambush. They were crossing for half an hour, and then they melted away. He could not see one of the figures again, nor did any sound come from them, but he knew that the riflemen lay there in the bushes, and that many a man would fall before they waded Bull Run again.
"Do you think the attack is really coming this time?" whispered Langdon.
"I feel sure of it," replied Harry. "All the scouts have said so and you may laugh at me, Tom, but I tell you that when the wind blows our way I feel the dust raised by thirty thousand men marching toward us."
"I'm not laughing at you, Harry. Sometimes that instinct of yours tells when things are coming long before you can see or hear 'em. But while I'm no such wonder myself I can hear those bullfrogs croaking down there at the edge of the water. Think of their cheek, calmly singing their night songs between two armies of twenty or thirty thousand men each, who are going to fight tomorrow."
"But it's not their fight," said St. Clair, "and maybe they are croaking for a lot of us."
"Shut up, you bird of ill omen, you raven, you," said Happy Tom. "Everything is going to happen for the best, we are going to win the victory, and we three are going to come out of the battle all right."
St. Clair did not answer him. His was a serious nature and he foresaw a great struggle which would waver long in doubt. Harry had lain down on his blanket and was seeking sleep again.
"Stop talking," he said to the other two. "We've got to go to sleep if it's only for the sake of our nerves. We must be fresh and steady when we go into the battle in the morning."