"
"The other fellow never does. To be quite candid, it is beyond my
comprehension how a certain lady can prefer the infantry to the
cavalry--yet she does emphatically."
Dan coloured.
"Was grandpa well?" he inquired lamely.
With a laugh Champe flung one leg over the other, and clasped his knee.
"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," he responded. "Grandpa's
thoughts are so much given to the Yankees that he has become actually
angelic to the rest of us. By the way, do you know that Mr. Blake is in the
army?"
"What?" cried Dan, aghast.
"Oh, I don't mean that he really carries a rifle--though he swears he would
if he only had twenty years off his shoulders--but he has become our
chaplain in young Chrysty's place, and the boys say there is more gun
powder in his prayers than in our biggest battery."
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Dan.
"You ought to hear him--it's better than fighting on your own account. Last
Sunday he gave us a prayer in which he said: 'O Lord, thou knowest that we
are the greatest army thou hast ever seen; put forth thy hand then but a
very little and we will whip the earth.' By Jove, you look cosey here," he
added, glancing into the hut where Dan and Pinetop slept in bunks of straw.
"I hope the roads won't dry before you've warmed your house." He shook
hands again, and swung off amid the renewed jeers that issued from the open
doorways.
Dan watched him until he vanished among the distant pines, and then,
turning, went into the little hut where he found Pinetop sitting before a
rude chimney, which he had constructed with much labour.
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