“We’re about half way to Washington, I judge,” he said, “an’ I expect a lot of our camp followers and grass-green men are all the way there by now, tellin’ Abe Lincoln an’ everybody else that a hundred thousand rebels fell hard upon us on the plain of Manassas.”

He laughed deep down in his throat and Dick again drew courage and cheerfulness from one who had such a great store of both.

“How did it happen?  Our defeat, I mean,” asked Dick.  “I thought almost to the very last moment that we had the victory won.”

“Their reserves came an’ ours didn’t.  But the boys did well.  Lots worse than this will happen to us, an’ we’ll live to overcome it.  I’ve been through a heap of hardships in my life, Dick, but I always remember that somebody else has been through worse.  Let’s go down the hill.  The boys have found a branch an’ are washin’ up.”

By “branch” he meant a brook, and Dick went with him gladly.  They found a fine, clear stream, several feet broad and a foot deep, flowing swiftly between the slopes, and probably emptying miles further on into Bull Run.  Already it was lined by hundreds of soldiers, mostly boys, who were bathing freely in its cool waters.  Dick and the sergeant joined them and with the sparkle of the current fresh life and vigor flowed into their veins.

An officer took command, and when they had bathed their faces, necks, and arms abundantly they were allowed to take off their shoes and socks and put their bruised and aching feet in the stream.

“It seems to me, sergeant, that this is pretty near to Heaven,” said Dick as he sat on the bank and let the water swish around his ankles.

“It’s mighty good.  There’s no denyin’ it, but we’ll move still a step nearer to Heaven, when we get our share of that beef an’ coffee, which I now smell most appetizin’.  Hard work gives a fellow a ragin’ appetite, an’ I reckon fightin’ is the hardest of all work.  When I was a lumberman in Wisconsin I thought nothin’ could beat that, but I admit now that a big battle is more exhaustin’.”

“You’ve worked in the timber then?”

“From the time I was twelve years old ’til three or four years ago.  If I do say it myself, there wasn’t a man in all Wisconsin, or Michigan either, who could swing an axe harder or longer than I could.  I guess you’ve noticed these hands of mine.”

He held them up, and they impressed Dick more than ever.  They were great masses of bone and muscle fit for a giant.

“Paws, the boys used to call ’em,” resumed Whitley with a pleased laugh.  “I inherited big hands.  Father had em an’ mother had ’em, too.  So mine were wonders when I was a boy, an’ when you add to that years an’ years with the axe, an’ with liftin’ an’ rollin’ big logs I’ve got what I reckon is the strongest pair of hands in the United States.  I can pull a horseshoe apart any time.  Mighty useful they are, too, as I’m likely to show you often.”