and he shook and shuffled as though extremely feeble. His clothing was a hodge-podge of filthy tatters.
At any rate, he was no soldier foe. Paradine holstered his revolver, and leaned on his saber. The bearded one came close, making slow circuit of two fallen soldiers that lay in his path. Close at hand, he appeared as tall and gaunt as a flagstaff, and his beard was a fluttering white flag, but not for truce.
“I spoke to ’em,” he said, quietly but definitely, “an’ they dozed off like they was drunk.”
“You mean these troops?”
“Who else, son? They come marchin’ from them hills to the north. The folks scattered outa here like rabbits—all but me. I waited. An’—I put these here Yanks to sleep.”
Hhe reached under his veil of beard, apparently fumbling in the bosom of his ruined shirt. His brown old fork of a hand produced a dingy book, bound in gray paper.
“This does it,” he said.
Paradine looked at the front cover. It bore the woodcut of an owl against a round moon.
The title was in black capitals:
JOHN GEORGE HOHMAN’S
POW-WOWS
OR
LONG LOST FRIEND
“Got it a long time back, from a Pennsylvany witch-man.”
Paradine did not understand, and was not sure that he wanted to. He still wondered how so many fighting-men could lie stunned.
“I thought ye was a Yank, an’ I’d missed ye somehow,” the quiet old voice informed him. “That’s a Yank sojer suit, hain’t it? I was goin’ to read ye some sleep words, but ye give the yell, an’ I knew ye was secesh.”
Paradine made a gesture, as though to brush away a troublesome fly. He must investigate further. Up the street he walked, among the prone soldiers.
It took him half an hour to complete his survey, walking from end to end of that unconscious host. He saw infantry, men and officers sprawling together in slack comradeship; three batteries of Parrott guns, still coupled to their limbers, with horses slumped in their harness and riders and drivers fallen in the dust beneath the wheels; a body of cavalry—it should have been scouting out front, thought Paradine professionally—all down and still, like a whole parkful of equestrian statues overturned; wagons; and finally, last of the procession save for a prudently placed rear-guard, a little clutter of men in gold braid. He approached the oldest and stoutest of these, noting the two stars on the shoulder straps—a major general.
Paradine knelt, unbuttoned the frock coat, and felt in the pockets. Here were papers. The first he unfolded was the copy of an order:
General T. F. Kottler,
Commanding ⸺ Division, USA.
General:
You will move immediately, with your entire
force, taking up a strong defensive position
in the Channow Valley. . . .
This, then, was Kottler’s Division. Paradine estimated the force as five thousand bluecoats, all veterans by the look of them, but nothing that his own comrades would have feared. He studied the wagon-train hungrily. It was packed with food and clothing, badly needed by the Confederacy. He would do well to get back and report his find. He turned, and saw that the old man with the white beard had followed him along the street.
