"Thank you, sir," said Happy sincerely.
Half way up the mountain they found the dip they wished, sheltered by cedars and pines. Here they rested and ate, and from their covert saw many lights burning in the valley. But they knew they were the lights of the victorious foe, and they would not look that way often.
The October winds were cold, and they had lost their blankets, but the dry leaves lay in heaps, and they raked them up for beds. The lads, worn to the bone, fell asleep, and, after a while, only the two colonels remained awake.
"I do not feel sleepy at all, Hector," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot.
"I could not possibly sleep, Leonidas," said Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire.
"Then shall we?"
"Why not?"
Colonel Talbot produced from under his coat a small board, and Lieutenant Colonel St. Hilaire took from under his own coat a small box.
They put the board upon a broad stone, arranged the chessmen, as they were at the latest interruption, and, as the moonlight came through the dwarfed pines and cedars, the two gray heads bent over the game.