's the Kid? Kid Sylvester!"

"Here! All right, Barney; I'll be out in two shakes," shouted the
bugler.

"Hurry, then! I can hear the Colonel shouting already. Man, listen to
that!"--as four of Fort Hell's guns crashed almost simultaneously.
"Brownie! Greasy Cook! O Brownie!"

"Here!" shouted the cook.

"Get your fire started right away, and see what salt horse and biscuit
you can scare up. Maybe we'll have time for a snack."

"Turn out, Company K!" shouted Lieutenant Bradley, running down from
the officers' quarters. "Where's the commissary sergeant? There?--all
right--give out feed right away! Get your oats, men, and feed
instantly! We may have time. Hullo! here's the General's orderly."

As the trooper galloped, in a mud-storm, across the parade ground, a
group of officers ran out behind the Colonel from the screen of pine
saplings about Regimental Headquarters. The orderly gave the Colonel
but a word, and, wheeling, was off again as "Boot and saddle" blared
from the buglers, who had now assembled on parade.

"But leave the bits out--let your horses feed!" cried the Lieutenant,
running down again. "We're not to march till further orders."

Beyond the screen of pines Harry could see the tall canvas ridges of
the officers' cabins lighted up. Now all the tents of the regiment,
row behind row, were faintly luminous, and the renewed drizzle of the
dawn was a little lightened in every direction by the canvas-hidden
candles of infantry regiments, the glare of numerous fires already
started, and sparks showering up from the cook-houses of company after
company.

Soon in the cloudy sky the cannonade rolled about in broad day, which
was still so gray that long wide flashes of flame could be seen to
spring far out before every report from the guns of Fort Hell, and in
the haze but few of the rebel shells shrieking along their high curve
could be clearly seen bursting over Hancock's cheering men.
Indistinguishably blent were the sounds of hosts on the move,
field-guns pounding to the front, troops shouting, the clink and
rattle of metal, officers calling, bugles blaring, drums rolling,
mules screaming,--all heard as a running accompaniment to the cannon
heavily punctuating the multitudinous din.

"Fwat sinse in the ould man bodderin' us?" grumbled Corporal Kennedy,
a tall Fenian dragoon from the British army. "Sure, ain't it as plain
as the sun--and faith the same's not plain this dirthy mornin'--that
there's no work