Part 4

"Come ahead, then," said the colonel, laughing at the ease with which his companion set aside the verdict of the coin. "That's not such a bad system of yours: snapping to see what you'll do, and then doing what you please. Always work it that way?"

"No, not always," returned the paymaster, lengthening his stride in order to keep up with the pace set by the colonel, "only sometimes; and this is one of the times. Suppose we shall find anybody up there?"

"The genial Pollard is sure to be there. He's a fixture. Can't see why he pays dues at his club, can you? Since we started this institution he's never spent an evening anywhere else. Well, here we are--all except the stairs," said the colonel, turning in at the court at whose far end, away up in the darkness, the lights of The Battery invitingly twinkled. "Hello!" he exclaimed, a moment later, as he opened the door at the head of the last flight of stairs, "here's Pollard, sure enough--and 'Bones,' and a couple more men," and with this he walked over towards the table around which the earlier comers were seated.

"Colonel Elliott, let me present Lieutenant Hotchkiss and Ensign Hatch, both of the Naval Battalion," said the surgeon, rising and designating these officers with a graceful wave of his cigar. "Gentlemen, this is Langforth, our 'Pay.' Ah, you've met him?" The two late comers drew up chairs, and made known to Sam their requirements; and then the colonel, turning towards the surgeon, said, "Bones, what is it? You look troubled."

"Well, to tell the truth," replied the surgeon, ruefully glancing at his questioner, "I _was_ going to tell these fellows how I won the cavalry cup, but now I suppose I shall have to defer it to another time."

"Oh, go ahead with your yarn--spring it," said the colonel. "'Pay' and I don't mind, and Pollard the genial never will interrupt. Besides, with three of us here, you'll not be apt to deviate very widely from the truth, and truth is desirable in all reports of a military Nature. Go ahead!" and the colonel, with a wink at Langforth, took the mug which Sam had brought him.

"Well, you see, it was like this," began the surgeon, clasping his hands behind his head, and comfortably leaning back in his chair. "In camp, last summer, we had the athletic fever pretty badly, and the way all hands went in for games of various sorts was a caution."

"'Games of various sorts,'" echoed Pollard, winking at the paymaster, and making motions as if dealing a pack of invisible cards. "That's not bad, Bones."

"_Out-door_ games of various sorts," amended the surgeon. "Cork up, will you, and don't let these sailors carry away wrong impressions of us."

"All right, old man," replied Pollard, catching Sam's eye, and holding up one finger to denote drought; "only don't be so ambiguous in your remarks. But really, we did have lots of athletic enthusiasm, last camp, and it was very tiring to see the boys all sweating after some record or other--when they were off duty--instead of lying 'round in their tents and keeping cool."

"The cavalry fellows," resumed Bones, "didn't seem able to muster much talent in the way of track athletes, and for a time they weren't in it at all. But one night, between tattoo and taps, little Whateley--second lieutenant, you know, of 'H' troop--came riding down the lines, stopping at all the regimental headquarters, and finally he brought up at our marquee.

"A few of us were sitting there, smoking a good-night pipe before turning in, and we made him dismount before telling us his errand. Well, I ordered up a little prescription for him, to counteract the effects of the night air, and when he'd got back his breath--"

"Gad!" put in one of the visitors, "is _that_ the way your doses work, doctor?"

"Did I say it was the prescription?" inquired the doctor, unclasping his hands, and leaning forward to take a pipe from the table. "He might have been out of breath from riding so far. Anyway, he got his breath back, as I've stated, and used it to remark that the cavalry took a deep interest in military sports, and had chipped in to buy a silver tankard to be ridden for by the mounted officers in the brigade. And he further said--with a grin, too, confound his youthful impudence!--that he knew we could enter some mighty fine material, for the reputation for horsemanship of our field and staff was more than local.

"Now, that last insinuation was too much, and we told him that he needn't worry--we'd be represented. So off he rode, declining to take another dose of my good medicine, though I told him that the prescription read, 'Repeat as required,' which meant once in five minutes. Well, after he'd gone, we began to talk it all over, and the discussion as to who best could afford to run the risk of breaking his neck for the glory of the regiment and the good of the service was an animated one, you'd do well to believe."

"Yes--and I remember the extreme modesty with which everybody suggested some other man for that distinction," remarked the colonel in a reminiscent way, "and how you all fell over each other in your anxiety to let somebody else do the riding and gather in the glory."

"Well, I'd been detailed as Field Officer of the Day for the date the race was scheduled," Major Pollard hastened to explain; while Langforth promptly came in with the remark, "And I hardly had got into shape from my winter's attack of grippe."

"There, _there_!" exclaimed the colonel, with a wave of his hand, "we don't care to have all that over again. For my own part, I couldn't ride because--well, because it hardly would do for a regimental commander to so far forget himself as to go in for anything of that sort. See?"

"In other words, six of us didn't dare to go in, and the remaining half-dozen were afraid to," said the surgeon, drawing up one foot to rest it easily across his knee. "Well, it all ended in my being chosen by acclamation to represent the glorious Third, and, though I wasn't exactly 'impatient to mount and ride,' yet I made the best of it, and tried to pretend that I was."

"It seems to have been acknowledged that you were the best rider in your regiment," suggested one of the visitors.

"Oh, I hardly should care to claim so much as that," replied Bones, with a glance at his brother officers, "but I've been nine years in the service without falling off my horse--and that's a pretty fair record for a staff officer of volunteers. Well, as I've said, I was elected without a dissenting voice--except my own--and the ill-concealed joy of Wilder, our assistant surgeon, was something worth seeing. He's looking for promotion, you know, and a casual broken neck on my part would have given it to him."

"Pardon the interruption," interposed the colonel, blandly, "but there will be a vacancy for Wilder, and very soon, too, if you cast any more reflections upon the horsemanship of my military family."

"Gracious! did I?" asked Bones, hastily. "Impossible! Why, we all ride, and ride well; all except the adjutant. _He can't!_"

"Pardon me again, doctor," said the colonel, sighing wearily, "but the adjutant can ride, too. I've _seen_ him."

"If you say so, I suppose I'm not to dispute it," rejoined the surgeon, meekly. "But, if he's such a good rider, don't you think it was just a little rough on him to take him up four flights of stairs, as you did only last week, and introduce him to the wooden vaulting-horse in the regimental gymnasium?" The colonel laughed at this recital of the latest headquarters' joke, and Bones continued, "Well, even if the adjutant _is_ rather amateurish in his riding, he at least is entitled to some of the credit for winning the cup, for he furnished my mount.

"You see, Charley had a horse, last camp, that suited him 'way down to the ground. His walking gait was the poetry of motion; in fact, it was hard to get him to move at any faster pace. But somehow, by slapping him with the reins and clucking to him, like a woman calling hens, Charley sometimes managed to get him into a lope that was just about as easy as a rocking-chair, and didn't seem to cover ground much more rapidly than a rocking-chair could. We used to suggest that spurring would be a more military method of getting the beast under way, but Charley always replied that spurs were unnecessarily cruel things, and that he hadn't the heart to do anything to interrupt the _entente cordiale_ existing between him and his charger."

"Wasn't it a ratty-looking beast, though!" put in Langforth, setting down his mug and laughing aloud. "We christened him 'Acme,' he was such a perfect skate."

"'Handsome is as handsome does,'" quoted Bones, sententiously. "His performances were remarkable, but he _wasn't_ much on beauty, especially at that point of his anatomy where about a square foot of hide and hair was lacking. However, we got around that blemish by borrowing some axle grease from one of the battery drivers and painting the bare spot so thoroughly that the rest of his hide looked dingy by contrast.

"Now, 'Acme' had one little peculiarity that nobody knew anything about; nobody, that is, except Charley and me. You couldn't touch him with a spur on either flank without making him wheel half 'round to the opposite side and bolt for all that was in him. It was a pleasant little trick and one that would throw a man every time unless he knew what was coming. I know that to be a fact because, well, because he threw _me_ in that way, the very first day we were in camp."

"Thought you'd been nine years in the service without ever being thrown," remarked Hotchkiss, with the air of one scoring a good point.

"Oh! no, I never said that," explained the imperturbable doctor, turning this thrust harmlessly aside. "If you recall my words you will remember that I said I'd never _fallen_ off; to be thrown off is a very different matter."

"Ah! I see. Pardon my carelessness," said the discomfited naval visitor. "We fellows that go down upon the sea in ships aren't very well up, I fear, in these nice distinctions of the land service."

"Naturally not," said the surgeon, "and of course it's excusable; but you readily will notice the distinction, which really is as great as that between being in mid-ocean and being 'half-seas over' would be, in your own case.

"Now, I recalled that little experience of mine with the adjutant's horse, and it occurred to me, when I was casting about for a mount, that if I only could manage to keep my seat while he was executing his diabolical half-face, I should have a dead cinch on the cup; for when he _did_ run, after one of those performances, he ran like the very devil."

"He did, indeed," said the colonel, smiling as if at some remembrance.

"It was on Wednesday night that little Whateley dropped in on us," Bones continued, "and the race was on the card for Friday noon. That was on 'Governor's Day,' you know, and the camp was sure to be crowded with visitors. Pleasant outlook for me, wasn't it?

"Well, on Thursday morning I borrowed 'Acme', and rode a couple of miles out of camp to a big hay-field I knew of, because I wished to make sure, by a strictly private trial, that my little scheme was in reliable working order. It was. Everything went to a charm. I got a firm grip on the pommel and gave 'Acme' the spur; whereupon he spun half 'round, and was off like a wild engine on a drop grade. Yes, he was off, but, better still, I was _on_, and when finally I got him into his rocking-chair lope, I started back for camp, pretty well satisfied with my experiment; and all the way along the road I couldn't help grinning at the thought of the sensation that was brewing for the next day."

"Well, it _was_ a sensation, and that can't be disputed," commented Pollard, as the surgeon paused for a moment. "We all backed you and 'Acme'; not because we had any particular expectations, but just out of loyalty to the old regiment, and because the odds were so inviting. I took ten out of Mixter, myself."

"Friday morning was cloudy," said the doctor, after he had brought his pipe to a satisfactory glow, "and I half hoped that it would rain before noon, for I was getting the least shade nervous. Everybody around our headquarters was so very kind that it made me fidgety as a school-girl. At breakfast, in mess, the colonel thoughtfully opened an elaborate discussion about the proper form of ceremonies at military burials. The adjutant, on his way to guard mounting, stopped long enough at my tent to say that 'Acme' just had killed one of the hostlers, and that the band had gone out of camp soon after breakfast for the purpose of practising 'The Lost Chord.' And _you_, Langforth--confound you! I haven't forgotten how you forged my name to an order to have the brigade ambulance report to me at noon, the very hour of the race.

"But somehow the morning went by, and at noon the sky was beautifully clear, though the air was most horribly lifeless and hot. I dressed up in full fig, helmet, sword, and all, according to the conditions, mounted 'Acme,' and rode out upon the parade.

"Pretty nearly the whole brigade had turned out to see the fun, and around the start the crowd was packed closely, while groups of men were scattered here and there along the three furlongs of turf over which the course had been laid out. I had supposed that there would be, at the very least, half-a-dozen entries; but when I had succeeded in manoeuvering 'Acme' through the crowd and up to the line, I found awaiting me just one solitary horseman. It was Porter, captain of "H" troop, and his mount was the same beautiful thoroughbred that he rides from one year's end to the other.

"Wasn't I sick! I never had a patient who felt worse than I did then. But there was no such thing as backing out at that stage of the game, and so I looked as confident as possible, and happier, I hope, than I felt. But when Porter saluted me, with an inquiring sort of glance at my tired-looking mount, and a grin at my audacity in showing up on such a beast, why, I swore under my breath that I'd send the spur into poor old 'Acme' deeply enough to scratch his digestive apparatus."

"It was a funny contrast," laughed Langforth, with his mug in mid-transit from the table to his lips. "Of course, Bones, you're a better looking man, and all that, than Porter; but that horse of his is a perfect picture for style, and when Charley's old skate ambled up beside him we couldn't _help_ grinning, any of us. Do you remember, Pollard, how that grease spot on 'Acme's' flank showed up?"

"Do I?" roared the major. "_Don't_ I! Why, Bowen, of the brigade-staff, was standing next me, and when he caught sight of that daub of axle-grease he punched me in the ribs and said, 'So you fellows have black-leaded your craft, eh? Now, I call that blasted unsportsmanlike! The other man hasn't worked any funny games like that.'"

"That was all right!" said the surgeon, grimly, "I had _my_ fun later--after the race was run.

"We lined up for the start, and it'll be a long while before I forget the row it raised when I persisted in planting 'Acme' at right angles to the course. Porter got mad, and announced that he'd come out to race, and not to take part in a circus. Most of the brigade set me down for being either sunstruck or drunk, but I wouldn't budge, and neither would 'Acme.' Finally Porter growled out, 'Let's have this nonsense over with! It isn't my fault that we can't have a race. Start us, will you?' 'All ready, major?' the starter asked me. 'Confound it all--yes!' said I, looking to see that all was clear around me, and then getting a death-grip on the pommel.

"Down went the flag, and off went Porter at an easy gallop. Up came my spurred heel, and off went 'Acme,' too, after a whirl-around that took away the breath of everybody who saw the performance, and knocked end-ways a couple of gunners who had edged in too close to the course. Shades of night! How that old four-legger flew! I'd rammed my spur home for business, and the way he responded beat even my wildest expectations.

"It was the worst run-away ever seen in camp, and, before I knew it, we'd passed Porter, passed the finish, passed the last tent in the long brigade line, and passed the ditch at the end of the field; at least, 'Acme' passed the ditch--_me_ they picked out of it."

"It certainly was a remarkable burst of speed," assented the colonel, laughing until the tears stood in his eyes. "When we found that Bones wasn't killed outright, we went for the cavalry fellows in every way, shape, and manner that our combined talents could suggest, and if we failed to make life a burden to them it wasn't for lack of trying. Come over here," he continued, rising from his chair, and leading the way to the opposite side of the room, where, in a double frame, there hung upon the wall two large photographs. "These two pictures--which, by the way, we consider priceless--tell the whole story. See that one? Well, that's the enlargement of a snap-shot plate caught by one of our color-sergeants when Bones was in full career. Observe the expression of the face; and, above all, notice that grip on the pommel. Isn't it all grand? Where should Sheridan's ride and Paul Revere's little trip be classed beside _that_?"

"The other picture in the frame," said the doctor, with a pardonable air of pride, "is a photo of the cup itself, and we all think a heap of it. The fellows in the troop, you see, had been going the rounds of the camp, and guying the life out of the Third--and me--for presuming to enter against their crack horse, so the final result was just plain joy for all hands at our headquarters.

"I was excused from parade that afternoon," he continued, knocking the dead ashes from his pipe, "because I was a trifle tired, and more than a trifle sore--in spots. Besides, it took one able-bodied darkey the best part of that afternoon to clean the mud off my uniform, knock my helmet out into shape, and straighten out the kinks in my scabbard.

"As for 'Acme': well, _he_ never turned a hair, and after a careless sort of trot around the camp he came back to our stables, looking just as unconcerned and sleepy as ever. But he lived high for the rest of that tour of duty, and nobody seemed to care about referring to him as a 'skate.'"

"'Sporting blood will tell,'" was Hatch's comment as the doctor led the way to the chair where the overcoats lay piled. "I should think, though, that the troopers would have challenged you to another go."

"They _have_ challenged us--and more than once," said the colonel, as Sam held his coat for him, "but our invariable reply is that our surgeon is too precious a bit of bric-à-brac to risk in any more enterprises of that sort, and--as none of the rest of us care to diminish Bones' glory--we have averaged up matters by keeping the cup and conceding them the championship," and he moved towards the door, stopping, however, with, "I wonder which owl this is?" as he caught the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside.

"Good evening, Colonel," sung out the new arrival, the adjutant, as he threw wide the door and stepped blinking into the room. "Hello, the rest of you! Can't make you all out, it's so bright here--after the stairs. What, all going?"

"Yes, it's a good hour beyond taps," replied the colonel.

"All right, sir; I'll go with you, if you'll wait for me to empty just _one_," said the adjutant, drawing off his right glove. "It would be too much to ask me to turn 'round and go down again without stopping for a second wind. One up, Sam--right around; making six."

"What's new, Charley?" asked the doctor, as Sam made off towards the base of supplies.

"Can't seem to think of anything," replied the adjutant, seating himself easily upon the nearest table, upon which he began vigorously to drum with his knuckles. "Hold on, though! Now I come to think of it, I saw 'Acme' to-day. Yes, sir! And he was drawing a _hearse_, too. _Yes_, sir! I followed the funeral a block, to make sure. Well, here's to him!" and the late master of "Acme" emptied his pewter with one long, breathless pull, while the doctor slowly drained _his_ mug, saying with unsmiling solemnity, "To 'Acme.'"

FROM BEYOND THE PYRAMIDS

FROM BEYOND THE PYRAMIDS.

It was the evening after the battle at Farlow's Farm, and most of us--what's that? You never heard of any such engagement? Now, isn't that odd! Why, it was fought only last year, and for one whole day the papers were full of it. Well, though I had no idea of putting a preface to the story I started to tell, I suppose I must stop long enough to explain why there was a fight, and how it happened that so many of us--all of us, in fact--got back alive from it.

Once a year, you must know, there comes down from the State House, and through "proper channels," a mandate directing each volunteer regiment in the Commonwealth to arm and equip itself, ration and supply itself, and bundle itself out into the country for what officially is known as the Fall Drill. _We_ are rather apt to refer to an affair of this sort as "going out with the regiment for the Autumn Manoeuvres," because, you see, this sounds more dignified, and lacks the baldness of the official phraseology.

Now, an order for a Fall Drill means _war_; because it entails a long day of marching, a prodigal expenditure of blank cartridges, and, at headquarters, bother and worry beyond reckoning.

Yes, when one of these orders comes down to us we awake to an activity which calls for the largest size of A in the spelling of it. The quartermaster rises to a height of importance hard to estimate, while his sergeant--upon whom devolves the bulk of the work--sinks into a settled gloom of corresponding depth. The surgeons find themselves pestered with requests to lay in a better brand of liniment than the stuff they took out with them the year before, which, it unanimously is asserted, was too blistering in its effect. The adjutant grimly sits at his desk and wrestles with the "General Order" until he reaches a state half-way between utter misery and hopeless atheism. Why? Because he knows to a dead certainty that a copy of it will find its way into every Sunday paper in town, and therefore tries with might and main--to say nothing of the aid of the old order-files for ten years back--to make of it a lucid and grammatical fragment of English prose,--an attempt in which he most signally fails. And the colonel: well, _he_ has the task of tasks, for it becomes his duty and privilege to evolve the plan of campaign; and the campaign, mind you, must be one that can be brought to a successful issue in a single day. Think of it! Do you suppose Sherman, or even Grant himself, could have met without concern such a demand upon strategic resources?

Days in advance of active operations, the field officers fill up their cigar-cases and run out into the country to look over the ground; constructing, upon their return, amazing maps, wherein--on generously large sheets of brown wrapping-paper--a tangle of blue lines and red ones serves to make plain the positions for the attack and the defence. Remarkable productions, those maps!--with long straight marks to indicate the roads, and zigzag lines to denote fences, and aggregations of pretzel-like symbols to show where the woods lie; and many a mystic sign besides to stand for as many more features in the landscape. Oh, we couldn't do without the maps, for a campaign that has to be settled between one sunrise and the next sunset must be managed very understandingly; and yet all this doesn't seem to keep the enlisted man from damning up hill and down both the maps and their makers when he finds himself one of a skirmish-line stationed in what ought to be a dry ditch, but isn't.