,
turned aside for a big flanking movement, and had hardly occupied the
city when they were started off for the Cripple Creek Bridge. Then they
were turned off again from that, and sent to march another twenty miles
to Newville. That was necessary, of course--they'd have been cut off and
captured, to a man, if they'd kept on for the bridge, without even the
fun of putting up a fight for their colors. But that doesn't make it any
easier work. I know Bean--he won't ask his men to do the impossible. And
that means that he'll be five miles from Newville when morning comes."

"Then nothing is likely to be decided to-morrow?" said Bob Hart.

"I don't see how it can be. The two armies are playing at cross purposes
to-night, you see. Unless the Blues have corrected their mistake, they
will be working on the assumption that Bean's brigade is out of it
entirely, and that they can eat up the main body of our army, and then
turn around and capture Bean when they like. While they're working on
that idea, General Harkness is making a desperate effort to turn the
tables on them, and lead them into just the same sort of a trap that
Jack Danby has enabled him to escape. His strategy is perfectly sound,
and he can't lose seriously, even if his plan fails. But I think the
umpires will call the fight to-morrow a drawn battle."

"What will happen then?"

"Now you're asking a question I can't answer. We've got to wait more or
less on the movements of the Blue army, you see. After all, we're on the
defensive. Of course, we've taken the offensive to-day, and on the
showing that's been made so far the Blues are very much out of it. On
the single day the umpires would have to give the decision to General
Harkness. He's in a better position right now to prevent an attack on
the capital itself than he was before the war began."

Then Durland called the order to sound taps, and in a few minutes the
Troop was sound asleep.

Bremerton that night was peaceful and quiet. Over in the telegraph
office watchful soldier operators were at work, but the clicking of
their keys did not disturb the Scouts in their well-earned rest. For
miles all about them there was bustle and activity. Troops, exhausted
after a day of work that was very real indeed for a good many of the
militiamen, clerks and office workers, camped along the roads and took
such rest as they could get. This game was proving as much of an
imitation of war as many of them wanted to see.