Escort Squad of Rankin's Lancers, 1st United States.
Our regiment is in Detroit, Miss, and thank God we're going back
there."

And they rode on toward Washington, singing their monotonous "Do
They Miss Me at Home" song, till she lost them against the darkness
of the distant woods, and dropped back to her bed of shawls and
blankets once more.

After midnight she slept, and it was only the noise the driver made
pulling the canvas cover of the frame above her that awakened her,
and she sat up, half frozen, in a fine fog that became a drizzle
soon after the cover was up.

"The sunny South," observed the driver in disgust. "Yesterday the
thermometer stood at 105 in Washington, and now look at this here
weather, lady."

Day broke, bitter cold; it was raining heavily; but soon after
sunrise the rain slackened, the fog grew thinner, and the air
warmer. Slowly the sun appeared, at first only a dazzling blot
through the smother, then brassy, glittering, flooding the chilled
earth with radiance.

Through steaming fields, over thickets, above woods, the vapours
were rising, disclosing a shining and wet world, sweet and fresh in
its early autumn beauty.

The road to Fairfax Court House was deep in red mud, set with
runnels and pools of gold reflecting corners of blue sky. Through
it slopped mules and horses and wheels, sending splashes of spray
and red mud over the roadside bushes. A few birds sang; overhead
sailed and circled hundreds of buzzards, the sun gilding their
upcurled wing tips as they sheered the tree-tops.

And now, everywhere over the landscape soldiers were visible,
squads clothed only in trousers and shirts, marching among the oaks
and magnolias with pick and shovel; squads carrying saws and axes
and chains. A little farther on a wet, laurel-bordered road into
the woods was being corduroyed; here they were bridging the lazy
and discoloured waters of a creek, there erecting log huts. Hammer
strokes rang from half-cleared hillsides, where some regiment,
newly encamped, was busily flooring its tents; the blows of axes
sounded from the oak woods; and Ailsa could see great trees
bending, slowly slanting, then falling with a rippling crash of
smashed branches.

The noises in the forest awoke Letty. Whimpering sleepily, but
warm under the shawls which Ailsa had piled around her, she sat up
rubbing her dark eyes; then, with a little quick-drawn breath of
content, took Ailsa's hand.

The driver said: "It