a few moments with our commander, and we made an
earthwork away off on one side of the road (leaving the other side to take
care of itself) and camped outside it in tents! But the Regular Army
fellow had not the heart to suggest the demolition of our Towers of Babel,
and the foundations remain to this day to attest the genius of the
American volunteer soldiery.

We were the original game-preservers of the Cheat Mountain region, for
although we hunted in season and out of season over as wide an area as we
dared to cover we took less game, probably, than would have been taken by
a certain single hunter of disloyal views whom we scared away. There were
bear galore and deer in quantity, and many a winter day, in snow up to his
knees, did the writer of this pass in tracking bruin to his den, where, I
am bound to say, I commonly left him. I agreed with my lamented friend,
the late Robert Weeks, poet:

Pursuit may be, it seems to me,
Perfect without possession.

There can be no doubt that the wealthy sportsmen who have made a preserve
of the Cheat Mountain region will find plenty of game if it has not died
since 1861. We left it there.

Yet hunting and idling were not the whole of life's programme up there on
that wild ridge with its shaggy pelt of spruce and firs, and in the
riparian lowlands that it parted. We had a bit of war now and again. There
was an occasional "affair of outposts"; sometimes a hazardous scout into
the enemy's country, ordered, I fear, more to keep up the appearance of
doing something than with a hope of accomplishing a military result. But
one day it was bruited about that a movement in force was to be made on
the enemy's position miles away, at the summit of the main ridge of the
Alleghanies--the camp whose faint blue smoke we had watched for weary
days. The movement was made, as was the fashion in those 'prentice days of
warfare, in two columns, which were to pounce upon the foeman from
opposite sides at the same moment. Led over unknown roads by untrusty
guides, encountering obstacles not foreseen--miles apart and without
communication, the two columns invariably failed to execute the movement
with requisite secrecy and precision. The enemy, in enjoyment of that
inestimable military advantage known in civilian speech as being
"surrounded," always beat the attacking columns one at a time or, turning
red-handed from the wreck of the first, frightened the other away.

All one bright wintry day