"If you please," asked Cooke, when the line had begun to move forward, "what is that wagon over there?"
He pointed to a mule team hitched to a quartermaster's wagon that a negro was driving into position across the rough field. It was piled high with luggage, a pyramid that rose black against the heavens. One of the militia officers, evidently greatly annoyed, bawled to the driver to get back out of the way.
"Pardon me," said Collins politely, "but is that your personal baggage, gentlemen?"
"That belongs to Colonel Gillingwater," remarked the quartermaster. "The rest of us have a suit-case apiece."
"Do you mean," demanded Ardmore, "that the adjutant-general carries all that luggage for himself?"
"That is exactly it! But," continued the quartermaster loyally, "you never can tell what will happen when you take the field this way, and our chief is not a man to forget any of the details of military life."
"In Washington we all think very highly of Colonel Gillingwater," remarked Collins, with noble condescension, "and in case we should become involved in war he would undoubtedly be called to high rank in the regular establishment."
"It's too bad," said Cooke, as the three drew aside and waited for a battery of light artillery to rumble into place behind the infantry, "it's too bad, Collins, that it didn't occur to you to impersonate the president of the French Republic or Emperor William. You'll be my death before we finish this job."
"This won't be so funny when Dangerfield gets hold of us," grinned the reporter. "We'd better cheer up all we can now. We're playing with the state of North Carolina as though it were a bean-bag. But what's that over there?"