Moscow, but that we had not a
Napoleon to soften privation for us. I said that the Stonewall Brigade
was unduly favoured, that the general commanding was--"

He got no further. "Silence, sir," said Jackson, "or I will bring you
before a court martial! You will come with me now to my tent. I will
hear General Loring's latest communication there." He turned upon
Cleave. "As for you, sir, you will consider yourself under arrest, first
for disobedience of orders, second for brawling in camp. You will march
to-morrow in the rear of your regiment."

He towered a moment, then with a jerk of his hand went away, taking with
him the officer from Loring. Stafford had a moment in which to make a
gesture of anger and deprecation--a gesture which the other acknowledged
with a nod; then he was gone, looking back once. Cleave returned to
Tullius and the small fire by the pawpaw bushes.

An hour later when his regiment came down into Bloomery Gap, he found
the colonel and made his report. "Why, damn it all!" said the colonel.
"We were backing you for the brush. Hunting weather, and a clean run
and all the dogs of war to fawn upon you at the end! And here's a paltry
three-foot hedge and a bad tumble! Never you mind! You'll pick yourself
up. Old Jack likes you first-rate."

Cleave laughed. "It doesn't much look like it, sir! Well--I'm back with
the regiment, anyway!"

All that night it snowed, snowed hard. When the day broke the valley had
the seeming of a crowded graveyard--numberless white mounds stretching
north and south in the feeble light. A bugle blew, silver chill;--the
men beneath the snow stirred, moaned, arose all white. All that day they
marched, and at dusk crossed the Capon and bivouacked below the shoulder
of Sand Mountain. In the morning they went up the mountain. The road was
deep sand, intolerably toilsome. The column ascended in long curves,
through a wood of oak and hickory, with vast tangles of grape hanging
from the trees. Cavalry, infantry, artillery, wagon train, stragglers,
the army came slowly, slowly down Sand Mountain, crossed the slender
levels, and climbed Lovett's Mountain. Lovett's was long and high, but
at last Lovett's, too, was overpassed. The column crept through a ravine
with a stream to the left. Grey cliffs appeared; fern and laurel growing
in the clefts. Below lay deep snowdrifts with blue shadows. Ahead,
overarching the road, appeared a grey mass that all but choked the
gorge. "Hanging Rock!"