Presently a small number of the men
returned to a camp-fire, and, building it up, seated themselves about it,
gathering closer and closer together until they were in a little knot.
One of them appeared to be writing, while two or three took up
flaming chunks from the fire and held them as torches for him to see by.
In time the entire company assembled about them, standing in
respectful silence, broken only occasionally by a reply from one or another
to some question from the scribe. After a little there was a sound
of a roll-call, and reading and a short colloquy followed, and then two men,
one with a paper in his hand, approached the fire beside which the officers
sat still engaged.
"What is it, Harris?" said the Colonel to the man with the paper, who bore
remnants of the chevrons of a sergeant on his stained and faded jacket.
"If you please, sir," he said, with a salute, "we have been talking it over,
and we'd like this paper to go in along with that you're writing."
He held it out to the lieutenant, who was the nearer and had reached forward
to take it. "We s'pose you're agoin' to bury it with the guns," he said,
hesitatingly, as he handed it over.
"What is it?" asked the Colonel, shading his eyes with his hands.
"It's just a little list we made out in and among us," he said,
"with a few things we'd like to put in, so's if anyone ever hauls 'em out
they'll find it there to tell what the old battery was, and if they don't,
it'll be in one of 'em down thar 'til judgment, an' it'll sort of ease
our minds a bit.
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