cking green apples.

"Boy," he said to one, "put down that fruit! Drop it, or I'll blow your
head off! Directly you'll double up, pucker, and say that you have the
"di-o-ree," and require an ambulance. Orderly!"

A sergeant came up and touched his cap.

"Take your musket," said the Colonel; "go out to that orchard, and order
those men away. If they hesitate or object, shoot them!"

A few such colonels would marvellously improve the volunteer
organization.

The Hazel or North Anne river, a branch of the Hedgemain, interposed a
few miles further on, and passing through a covered bridge, I turned
down the north bank, crossed some spongy fields, and at length came to a
dry place in the edge of a woods, where I tied my nag, spread out my
bed, and prepared to dine. A box of sardines, a lemon, and some fresh
sandwiches constituted the repast, and being dusty and parched I
stripped afterward and swam across the river. Seeing that my horse
plunged and neighed, with swollen eyeballs, and every evidence of
terror, I hastened toward him and discovered a black snake, six feet or
more in length, which seemed about to coil itself around the nag's leg.
The size and contiguity of the reptile at first appalled me, and my mind
was not more composed when the serpent, at my approach, manifested an
inclination to assume the offensive. Its folds were thicker than my arm,
and it commenced to revolve rapidly, at length running up a sapling,
suspending itself by the tail, and hissing vehemently. It belonged to
the family of "racers," and was hideous and powerful beyond any specimen
that I had seen. I blew it into halves at the second discharge of my
pistol, and at once resumed my saddle, indisposed to remain longer
amidst such acquaintances.

At four o'clock I saw Culpepper, a trim little village, lying in the
hollow of several hills. A couple of steeples added to its
picturesqueness, and a swift creek, crossed by a small bridge,
interposed between myself and the main part of the place. It looked like
Sunday when I rode through the principal street. The shutters were
closed in the shop windows, the dwellings seemed tenantless, no citizens
were abroad, no sutlers had invaded the country; only a few cavalry-men
clustered about an ancient pump to water their nags, and some military
idlers were sitting upon the long porch of a public house, called the
Virginia Hotel. I tied my horse to a tree, the bole of which had been
gnawed bare, and found