and thence to Centreville, where the army was to come together for the blow at the rebels.  Jack and his friends were a good deal chagrined to learn that they were not as near the enemy as the column to the south of them, whose fires had been mistaken for Beauregard’s.  Though the levee came to an end at “taps,” no one felt sleepy, and the excitement banished the pains of fatigue.  Major Mike, sauntering through the dark lines near midnight, heard the tale still going on in drowsy monotone, but, good-naturedly, made no sign.

Though not given the skirmish-line next day—­the 17th—­Jack was delighted to find that the Caribees led all the rest.  With them rode the commander of the brigade, Colonel Sherman, whom the soldiers thought a very crabbed and “grumpy” sort of a fellow.  His red hair bristled straight up and out when he took his slouch hat off, as he did very often, for the heat was intolerable.  His eyes had a merry twinkle, however, that won the hearts of the lads as he rode by, scrupulously striking into the fields to save the panting and heavily laden line every extra step he could.  Often, in after-days—­when Sherman had become the Turenne of the armies—­Jack, who was often heard to brag of his gift of detecting greatness, used to turn very red in the face when he was reminded of a saying of his on that hot July day: 

“That chap is too lean and hungry to have much stomach for a fight; he looks better fitted for wielding the ferule than the sword.  Schoolmaster is written in every line of his face and stamped in his pedagogue manner.”

The march that day was south by a little west, and about nine o’clock a cool morning breeze lifted the clouds of dust far enough above the horizon to reveal the distant blue of the mountains.  The whole line seemed to come to a pause in the enchanting, mirage-like spectacle.  “The Shenandoah,” Jack said, mopping the dust, or rather the thin coating of mud, from his face and brow, for the perspiration, oozing at every pore, naturally covered the exposed skin with an unpremeditated cosmetic.  The march to Fairfax Court-House, for which judicial temple the curious soldier looked in vain, was but eight miles from the point of departure in the morning, but it was two o’clock in the afternoon when the Caribees passed the hamlet, turning sharply to the right.  They marched up the deep cut of projected railway, where, for a time, they were shaded from the sun by the high banks.  But, emerging presently on the Warrenton pike, they saw evidences that other columns—­whether friends or foes they couldn’t tell—­had recently preceded them.  Scores of the raw and overworked were breaking down now every hour.