h-basin that sat on three wooden stakes just outside.
Sousing his head, he sniffed in the chill air and, looking below him,
took in, with pure mathematical delight, the working unit of the army as
it came to life. The very camp was the symbol of order and system: a low
hill, rising from a tiny stream below him in a series of natural
terraces to the fringe of low pines behind him, and on these terraces
officers and men sitting, according to rank; the white tepees of the
privates and their tethered horses--camped in column of
troops--stretching up the hill toward him; on the first terrace above
and flanking the columns, the old-fashioned army tents of company
officer and subaltern and the guidons in line--each captain with his
lieutenants at the head of each company street; behind them and on the
next terrace, the majors three--each facing the centre of his squadron.
And highest on top of the hill, and facing the centre of the regiment,
the slate-coloured tent of the Colonel, commanding every foot of the
camp.

"Yes," said a voice behind him, "and you'll find it just that way
throughout the army."

Crittenden turned in surprise, and the ubiquitous Grafton went on as
though the little trick of thought-reading were too unimportant for
notice.

"Let's go down and take a look at things. This is my last day," Grafton
went on, "and I'm out early. I go to Tampa to-morrow."

All the day before, as he travelled, Crittenden had seen the station
thronged with eager countrymen--that must have been the way it was in
the old war, he thought--and swarmed the thicker the farther he went
south. And now, as the two started down the hill, he could see in the
dusty road that ran through the old battlefield Southern interest and
sympathy taking visible shape. For a hundred miles around, the human
swarm had risen from the earth and was moving toward him on wagon,
bicycle, horseback, foot; in omnibus, carriage, cart; in barges on
wheels, with projecting additions, and other land-craft beyond
classification or description. And the people--the American Southerners;
rich whites, whites well-to-do, poor white trash; good country folks,
valley farmers; mountaineers--darkies, and the motley feminine horde
that the soldier draws the world over--all moving along the road as far
as he could see, and interspersed here and there in the long, low cloud
of dust with a clanking troop of horse or a red rumbling battery--all
coming to see the soldiers--th