Many of our soldiers were bathing, sporting like schoolboys in the water; Lamb’s artillerymen had their horses out to let them swim; many of the troops were washing their shirts along the gravelly reaches, or, seated cross-legged on the bank, were mending rents with needle and thread.  Half a dozen Oneida Indians sat gravely smoking and blinking at the scene—­ no doubt belonging to our corps of runners, scouts, and guides, for all were shaved, oiled, and painted for war, and, under their loosened blankets, I could see their lean and supple bodies, stark naked, except for clout and ankle moccasin.

I sat in the willow-shade before the door of our hut, cross-legged, too, writing in my journal of what had occurred since last I set down the details of the day.  This finished, I pouched quill, ink-horn, and journal, and sat a-thinking for a while of that strange maid, and what mischance might come of her woodland roving all alone—­ with Indian Butler out, and all that vile and painted, blue-eyed crew under McDonald.

Sombre thoughts assailed me there on that sunny July afternoon; I rested my elbow on my knee, forehead pressed against my palm, pondering.  And ever within my breast was I conscious of a faint, dull aching—­ a steady and perceptible apprehension which kept me restless, giving my mind no peace, my brooding thoughts no rest.

That this shabby, wandering girl had so gained me, spite of the rudeness with which she used me, I could never seem to understand; for she had done nothing to win even my pity, and she was but a ragged gypsy thing, and had conducted with scant courtesy.

Why had I given her my ring?  Was it only because I pitied her and desired to offer her a gift she might sell when necessary?  Why had I used her as a comrade—­ who had been but the comrade of an hour?  Why had I been so loath to part with her whom I scarce had met?  What was it in her that had fixed my attention?  What allure?  What unusual quality?  What grace of mind or person?

A slender, grey-eyed gypsy-thing in rags!  And I could no longer rid my mind of her!

What possessed me?  To what lesser nature in me was such a woman as this appealing?  I would have been ashamed to have any officer or man of my corps see me abroad in company with her.  I knew it well enough.  I knew that if in this girl anything was truly appealing to my unquiet heart I should silence even the slightest threat of any response—­ discourage, ignore, exterminate the last unruly trace of sentiment in her regard.

Yet I remained there motionless, thinking, thinking—­ her faded rosebud lying in my hand, drooping but still fragrant.

Dismiss her from my thoughts I could not.  The steady, relentless desire to see her; the continual apprehension that some mischance might overtake her, left me no peace of mind, so that the memory of her, not yet a pleasure even, nagged, nagged, nagged, till every weary nerve in me became unsteady.