And they rode on toward Washington, singing their monotonous “Do They Miss Me at Home” song, till she lost them against the darkness of the distant woods, and dropped back to her bed of shawls and blankets once more.

After midnight she slept, and it was only the noise the driver made pulling the canvas cover of the frame above her that awakened her, and she sat up, half frozen, in a fine fog that became a drizzle soon after the cover was up.

“The sunny South,” observed the driver in disgust.  “Yesterday the thermometer stood at 105 in Washington, and now look at this here weather, lady.”

Day broke, bitter cold; it was raining heavily; but soon after sunrise the rain slackened, the fog grew thinner, and the air warmer.  Slowly the sun appeared, at first only a dazzling blot through the smother, then brassy, glittering, flooding the chilled earth with radiance.

Through steaming fields, over thickets, above woods, the vapours were rising, disclosing a shining and wet world, sweet and fresh in its early autumn beauty.

The road to Fairfax Court House was deep in red mud, set with runnels and pools of gold reflecting corners of blue sky.  Through it slopped mules and horses and wheels, sending splashes of spray and red mud over the roadside bushes.  A few birds sang; overhead sailed and circled hundreds of buzzards, the sun gilding their upcurled wing tips as they sheered the tree-tops.

And now, everywhere over the landscape soldiers were visible, squads clothed only in trousers and shirts, marching among the oaks and magnolias with pick and shovel; squads carrying saws and axes and chains.  A little farther on a wet, laurel-bordered road into the woods was being corduroyed; here they were bridging the lazy and discoloured waters of a creek, there erecting log huts.  Hammer strokes rang from half-cleared hillsides, where some regiment, newly encamped, was busily flooring its tents; the blows of axes sounded from the oak woods; and Ailsa could see great trees bending, slowly slanting, then falling with a rippling crash of smashed branches.

The noises in the forest awoke Letty.  Whimpering sleepily, but warm under the shawls which Ailsa had piled around her, she sat up rubbing her dark eyes; then, with a little quick-drawn breath of content, took Ailsa’s hand.

The driver said:  “It’s them gallus lumbermen from some o’ the Maine regiments clearing the ground.  They’re some with the axe.  Yonder’s the new fort the Forty Thieves is building.”

“The—­what?” asked Ailsa, perplexed.

“Fortieth New York Infantry, ma’am.  The army calls ’em the Forty Thieves, they’re that bright at foraging, flag or no flag!  Chickens, pigs, sheep—­God knows they’re a light-fingered lot; but their colonel is one of the best officers in the land.  Why shouldn’t they be a good fat regiment, with their haversacks full o’ the best, when half the army feeds on tack and sow-belly, and the other half can’t git that!”