The old woman came out into the yard with some meat in her hand, and the shrill note of her orders to the negresses reached the Deacon's ears, though he could not make out the words. But he saw one of them go to the spring and bring water, which she poured in a wash-kettle set up in the yard, while the old woman prepared the beef and put it in, the other negress started a fire, and the old man chopped and split wood to put around the kettle and fill the stone oven near by.
ONE:"'Tention! Stack arms; Place rest!" commanded the Orderly.
ONE:The Captains were galloping ahead to point out the way. The Sergeants were alongside, seconding the whips of the drivers with strokes of the flats of their sabers on the animals' hanches. The six horses to each gun were galloping like mad, snatching the heavy piece over gullies, bumps, logs, and rocks as if it were a straw. The gunners had abandoned their usual calm pose with folded arms on the limber chests, and were maintaining their seats only by a desperate clutch on the side-irons.
TWO:Dodd looked at him mistily. "I'm disturbing you for nothing," he said. "Nothing I can do but get killed trying to start up a slave revolt. Which might be okay, but I don't know. If you get meI don't know about that, kid. Right?" He stood up, a little shakily, still leaning against the door. "And frankly," he said, "I don't want to get killed over a lot of alligators.""And I have mine." It was settled.
TWO:"Si, you ketch on like a he snappin' turtle," said Shorty joyfully. "We'll jest help ourselves to them guns and cartridge-boxes, and then move our camp over a little ways, and skeet out airly in the mornin' for the front, and we'll be all right. Don't say nothin' to the Lieutenant about it. He'll be all right, and approve of it, but he mustn't know anything of it officially. You git the men up and I'll go over and give the Lieutenant the wink and tell him that we've found a much better bivouac about a mile further on."
