n bate me!"

"Ay, Davy, Davy!" they shouted, for they were in the mood for anything.
There stood Colonel Clark in the dimmer light of the background. "We
must keep 'em screwed up, Davy," he had said that very day.

There came to me on the instant a wild song that my father had taught
me when the liquor held him in dominance. Exhilarated, I sprang from
Terence's arms to the sodden, bared space, and methinks I yet hear my
shrill, piping note, and see my legs kicking in the fling of it. There
was an uproar, a deeper voice chimed in, and here was McAndrew flinging
his legs with mine:--

"I've faught on land, I've faught at sea,
At hame I faught my aunty, O;
But I met the deevil and Dundee
On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O.
An' ye had been where I had been,
Ye wad na be sae cantie, O;
An' ye had seen what I ha'e seen
On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O."

In the morning Clark himself would be the first off through the gray
rain, laughing and shouting and waving his sword in the air, and I after
him as hard as I could pelt through the mud, beating the charge on my
drum until the war-cries of the regiment drowned the sound of it. For we
were upon a pleasure trip--lest any man forget,--a pleasure trip amidst
stark woods and brown plains flecked with ponds. So we followed him
until we came to a place where, in summer, two quiet rivers flowed
through green forests--the little Wabashes. And now! Now hickory and
maple, oak and cottonwood, stood shivering in three feet of water on
what had been a league of dry land. We stood dismayed at the crumbling
edge of the hill, and one hundred and seventy pairs of eyes were turned
on Clark. With a mere glance at the running stream high on the bank and
the drowned forest beyond, he turned and faced them.

"I reckon you've earned a rest, boys," he said. "We'll have games
to-day."

There were some dozen of the unflinching who needed not to be amused.
Choosing a great poplar, these he set to hollowing out a pirogue, and
himself came among the others and played leap-frog and the Indian game
of ball until night fell. And these, instead of moping and quarrelling,
forgot. That night, as I cooked him a buffalo steak, he drew near the
fire with Bowman.

"For the love of God keep up their spirits, Bowman," said the Colonel;
"keep up their spirits until we get them across. Once on the farther
hills, they cannot go back."

Her