w, downy beards appeared
on faces which had been of boyish smoothness when the river was crossed,
but this was only one of the minor changes. There was an alertness,
a sureness, a self-confidence shining from eyes which was even more
marked. Every one carried himself as if he knew precisely what he was
there for, and intended doing it. There was enough merriment around
camp, but it was very different from the noisy rollicking of the earlier
days. The men who had something to do were doing it with systematic
earnestness; the men who had nothing to do were getting as much solid
comfort and fun as the situation afforded. The frothy element among
officers and men had been rigorously weeded out or repressed. All that
remained were soldiers in the truest sense of the word. The change had
been very great even since the regiment had lined up for the fearful
ordeal of Chickamauga.

"Did you ever see a gang o' half-baked kids get to be men as quick as
these boys?" Si asked Shorty. "Think o' the awkward squads that used
to be continually fallin' over their own feet, and stabbing theirselves
with their own bayonets."

"Seems so," answered Shorty, "but I don't know that they've growed any
faster'n we have. Walt Slusser, who's bin Orderly at Headquarters, says
that he heard Capt. McGillicuddy tell Col. McBiddle that he'd never seen
men come out as me and you had, and he thought we'd make very effective
noncommish."

"Probably we've all growed," Si assented thoughtfully. "Just think o'
McBiddle as Lieutenant-Colonel, in place o' old Billings. Remember the
first time we saw McBiddle to know him? That time he was Sergeant o' the
Guard before Perryville, and was so gentle and soft-spoken that lots
o' the boys fooled themselves with the idee that he lacked sand. Same
fellers thought that old bellerin' bull Billings was a great fightin'
man. What chumps we all wuz that we stood Billings a week."

"Wonder if I'm ever goin' to have a chanst for a little private
sociable with Billings? Just as I think I'm goin' to have it, something
interferes. That feller's bin so long ripe for a lickin' that I'm afraid
he'll be completely spiled before my chanst comes."

"But I can't git over missin' so many familiar voices in command, and
hearin' others in their places," said Si. "That battalion drill they
wuz havin' as we come in didn't sound like our rijimint at all. I could
always tell which was our rijimint drillin' half a mile away by the
sound