!"

"That looks like it, doesn't it? The 5th Provisional Corps is
Porter's." He turned and looked back, out across the country.

"She may be somewhere out yonder, at this very moment, Steve." He
made a vague gesture toward the west, stood looking for a while,
then turned and walked slowly on with head lowered.

"I wish my mother and Ailsa were back in New York," said the boy
fretfully. "I don't see why the whole family should get into hot
water at the same time."

"It wouldn't surprise me very much if Ailsa's ambulance landed
beside your mother's door at Paigecourt," said Berkley. "The
head-quarters of the 5th Corps cannot be very far from Paigecourt."
At the cavalry lines he offered his hand to Stephen in farewell.

"Good-bye," said the boy. "I wish you the luck of the 6th Lancers.
Since Hanover Court-House nobody calls 'em 'fresh fish'--just
because they charged a few Johnnies with the lance and took a few
prisoners and lost thirty horses."

Berkley laughed. "Thanks; and I wish you the luck of the 5th
Zouaves. They're into everything, I hear, particularly hen-coops
and pigpens. Casson says they live high in the 5th Zouaves. . .
Good-bye, old fellow . . . will you remember me to your father?"

"I will when he lets me talk to him," grinned Stephen. "We're a
disciplined regiment--I found that out right away--and there's
nothing soft for me to expect just because my father is colonel and
Josiah Lent happens to be major."

The regimental bands played the next day; the distant cannonade had
ceased; sunshine fell from a cloudless sky, and the army watched a
military balloon, the "Intrepid," high glistening above the river,
its cables trailing in gracious curves earthward.

Porter's 5th Corps now formed the rear-guard of the army; entire
regiments went on picket, even the two regiments of Lancers took
their turn, though not armed for that duty. During the day there
had been some unusually brisk firing along the river, near enough
to cause regiments that had never been under fire to prick up a
thousand pairs of ears and listen. As the day lengthened toward
evening, picket firing became incessant, and the occasional solid
report of a cannon from the shore opposite disclosed the presence
of Confederate batteries, the nearness of which surprised many an
untried soldier.

Toward sundown Berkley saw a business-like cavalry officer ride
into camp with an escort of the 5th Regulars. Men around him said
th