lankets, etc. which had been left there;
while the rest marched, by the road, to the place where the cart
had been left the night before. Two peasants were engaged as guides
and, in the afternoon, the corps started for their destination.

It was a terrible march. The roads were mere tracks, and the
weather was terrible. Over and over again, the men had to unload
the carts, shoulder the contents, and carry them for a considerable
distance, until ground was reached where the cart could again be
loaded.

It was not until late on the evening of the third day's march that,
thoroughly done up by fatigue and hardship, the corps reached the
little village of Raon, in the heart of the forest of Bousson.
There was no possible fear of attack, here; and the commandant
decided that, for the night, there was no occasion for any of the
men to be out as sentries. The villagers at once took charge of the
animals, and turned them into a rough enclosure. The men were too
much done up even to care about keeping awake until supper could be
cooked and--being divided among the houses of the village--they
threw themselves down, and were fast asleep in a few minutes.

The next morning, the sun shone out brightly; and the men, turning
out after a long sleep, felt quite different creatures to the tired
band who had wearily crawled into the village. The bright sky, the
fresh morning air, the pleasant odor of the great pine forest
around them, and the bracing atmosphere--at the height of fifteen
hundred feet above the sea--at once refreshed and cheered them.

There was a brief morning parade--at which Tim Doyle, for the first
time, took his place with a rifle on his shoulder--and then the
major dismissed them, saying that there would be no further parade
that day, and that the men could amuse themselves as they liked. In
a short time, every man was following the bent of his own
inclination. First, however, there was a general cleaning of the
rifles and accouterments; then most of the men went down to the
stream, and there was a great washing of clothes, accompanied with
much laughing and joking. Then needles and thread were obtained,
from the women of the village, and there was much mending and
darning--for the past three days' work, among rocks and woods, had
done no little damage to their uniforms.

Next came the grand operation of breakfast, for which two of the
sheep had been killed. This, being the first regular meal that they
had had,