place these
in his basket and still push on.

He avoided the camps as much as he could. He could see the smoke rising
in front of him, and the roar of guns was now close at hand. He saw on
his right an elevated piece of ground, from which a good view could be
obtained of the fortifications upon which the Federals were working. A
camp had been pitched there, and a large tent near the summit showed
that some officer of superior rank had his quarters here. He made a
detour so as to come up at the back of the hill, and when he reached the
top he stood looking down upon the line of works.

They were nearly half a mile distant. The intervening ground had already
been stripped of its hedges, and the trees cut down to form gabions,
fascines, and platforms for the cannon. Thousands of men were at work;
but in some parts they were clustered much more thickly than in others,
and Vincent had no difficulty in determining where the principal
batteries were in course of construction along this portion of the
position. He was still gazing intently when two horsemen rode up from
behind.

"Hallo, you, sir! What are you looking at?" one of them asked sharply.
"What are you spying about here?"

Vincent turned slowly round with a silly smile on his lips.

"I am spying all them chaps at work," he said. "It reminds me for all
the world of an ant-hill. Never did see so many chaps before. What be
they a-doing? Digging a big drain or making a roadway, I guess."

"Who are you, sir?" the officer asked angrily.

"Seth Jones I be, and mother's sent me to sell some fowls and eggs. Do
you want to buy any? Fine birds they be."

"Why, Sheridan," laughed the other officer, "this is a feather out of
your cap. I thought your fellows had cleared out every hen-roost within
twenty miles of Petersburg already."

"I fancy they have emptied most of them," the general said grimly.
"Where do you come from, lad?"

"I comes from over there," Vincent said, jerking his thumb back. "I
lives there with mother. Father and the other boys they have gone
fighting Yanks; but they wouldn't take me with them 'cause I aint sharp
in my wits, though I tells them I could shoot a Yank as well as they
could if they showed me."

"And who do you suppose all those men are?" General Sheridan asked,
pointing toward the trenches.

"I dunno," Vincent replied. "I guess they be niggers. There be too many
of them for whites; besides, whites aint such fools to work like that.
D