Crittenden

So that, each day there was a relief to the night agony, which, every

morning, began straightway with the thought that the fight might be

going on at that very hour. Not once did Judith come near. She had been

ill, to be sure, but one day Mrs. Crittenden met her on the way to town

and stopped her in the road; but the girl had spoken so strangely that

the mother drove on, at loss to understand and much hurt. Next day she

learned that Judith, despite her ill health and her father's protests,

had gone to nurse the sick and the wounded--what Phyllis plead in vain

to do. The following day a letter came from Mrs. Crittenden's elder son.

He was well, and the mother must not worry about either him or Basil. He

did not think there would be much fighting and, anyhow, the great risk

was from disease, and he feared very little from that. Basil would be

much safer as an aid on a General's staff. He would get plenty to eat,

would be less exposed to weather, have no long marches--as he would be

mounted--and no guard duty at all hours of day and night. And, moreover,

he would probably be less constantly exposed to bullets. So she must not

worry about him. Not one word was there about Judith--not even to ask

how she was, which was strange. He had said nothing about the girl when

he told his mother good-by; and when she broached the subject, he

answered sadly: "Don't, mother; I can't say a word--not a word."

In his letter he had outlined Basil's advantages, not one of which was

his--and sitting on the porch of the old homestead at sunset of the last

rich day in June, the mother was following her eldest born through the

transport life, the fiery marches, the night watches on lonely outposts,

the hard food, the drenching rains, steaming heat, laden with the breath

of terrible disease, not realizing how little he minded it all and how

much good it was doing him. She did know, however, that it had been but

play thus far to what must follow. Perhaps, even now, she thought, the

deadly work was beginning, while she sat in the shrine of peace--even

now.

And it was. Almost at that hour the troops were breaking camp and

moving forward along the one narrow jungle-road--choked with wagon,

pack-mule, and soldier--through a haze of dust, and, turning to the

right at the first crossing beyond corps head-quarters--under

Chaffee--for Caney. Now and then a piece of artillery, with its flashes

of crimson, would pass through the advancing columns amid the waving of

hats and a great cheering to take position against the stone fort at

Caney or at El Poso, to be trained on the block-house at San Juan. And

through the sunset and the dusk the columns marched, and, after night

fell, the dark, silent masses of slouch hats, shoulders, and gun-muzzles

kept on marching past the smoke and flare of the deserted camp-fires

that lighted thicket and grassy plot along the trail. And after the

flames had died down to cinders--in the same black terrible silence, the

hosts were marching still.