The Last Three Soldiers

by W. H. Shelton

CHRISTENING THE TERRITORY.

This was to be their last military ceremony, and having no further use for their swords, they arranged them with belts and scabbards into a handsome decoration against the chimneypiece, and crossed above them the three red-and-white flags of the station. The Revised Army Regulations and Philip's prayer-book stood on the mantelpiece alongside the spy-glass in its leathern case. The few articles of extra clothing hung in a line on the wall just opposite to the three bunks, whose under layer of pine boughs gave an aromatic perfume to the room.

After the ceremony of naming the plateau, and having fixed the trophies to their satisfaction, the three exiles took down their sky-blue overcoats from the line, for the November air was nipping cold, and set out with the two carbines and an empty sack to keep Thanksgiving in the good old country way. They were still rather sad after what had happened in the morning; but by the time they were back all the gloom had worn off, for they brought with them two rabbits and a bag of chestnuts, and appetites sharpened by exercise in the keen air.

Philip made the stew, and Bromley fried two chickens of their own raising, one after the other, on a half-canteen, and the potatoes, left to themselves, burst their jackets in the ashes with impatience to be eaten. Each man made his own coffee in his own blackened tin cup, and drank it with a keener relish because it was near the last of their commissary stock.

While they were eating and drinking within, the sky without had become thick with clouds blown up on the east wind, so that when they looked out at the door they saw Tumbler, the bear, who also had been stuffing himself with acorns, and ants which he had pawed out of a rotten log, rolling home for shelter.

There was yet time before the storm broke, and away they went up the hill as happy as lords, to load themselves with dead chestnut limbs and a few resinous sticks of fat pine; and when night came, and with it the rain, there was a warm fire in the new chimney, and a stick of lightwood thrust behind the backlog lighted the interior of the house with a good forty-adamantine-candle power. Tumbler lay rolled up in his favorite corner, blinking his small eyes at the unusual light, and from time to time he passed his furry paw over his sharp nose and gave forth a low grunt of satisfaction. Philip sat against the chimney opposite Tumbler, stirring chestnuts in the ashes with a ramrod, while Bromley put away the last of the supper things, and Lieutenant Coleman gazed out of the open window into the slanting rain, which beat a merry tattoo on the shingles, and tossed at intervals a sturdy drop on the hissing fire.

It was certainly not the cheerful interior, beaming with light and heat, that turned Lieutenant Coleman's thoughts back to the dark cloud of disasters which had overwhelmed the National arms; it might have been the dismal outlook from the square window into the darkness and the storm. At all events, he turned abruptly about as if a new idea had struck him.

"George, this sudden success of the Johnnies has not been gained without important outside aid. The French in Mexico may have decided at last to cross the border, and if they did it was in concert with the naval demonstrations of more than one European power against the blockade."

"That is just what I have been thinking, Fred," said Bromley, "and England is sure to be at the bottom of it. After the sinking of the 'Alabama' there was no time to be lost, and when Grant's army began to fall back from Richmond, that hostile government had the excuse it had long been waiting for, and recognized the Confederacy at once."