Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/15



T WAS already growing dusk when the Staunton Battery of Horse Artillery returned wearily to camp after hours of hard field drill, the men ever conscious that no evolution, however trivial, was being overlooked by "Stonewall" Jackson, sitting astride his sorrel on a little eminence to the left, his stern face unrelieved by even the semblance of a smile. He would criticise without mercy, but never praise, and the artillerymen insensibly stiffened to the work, as eager to do well as though they were in action.

The time was early spring, some remnants of snow still clinging to the hollows out of reach of the warming sun, and a chill wind blowing through the passes of the western mountains. The comparative idleness of the past winter months, given 1