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The Shades of the Wilderness - A Story of Lee's Great Stand by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
page 22 of 342 (06%)
in any of them than we have in this moving one of yours."

"Good-by, you're always welcome to it. I think Marse Bob is on ahead."

The two left the wagon and took to a path beside the road, which was
muddy and rutted deeply by innumerable hoofs and wheels. But grass and
foliage were now dry after the heavy rains that followed the Battle of
Gettysburg, and the sun was shining in late splendor. The army, taking
the lack of pursuit and attack as proof that the enemy had suffered as
much as they, if not more, was in good spirits, and many of the men sang
their marching songs. A band ahead of them suddenly began to play mellow
music, "Partant Pour La Syrie," and other old French songs. The airs
became gay, festive, uplifting to the soul, and they tickled the feet of
the young men.

"The Cajun band!" exclaimed Harry. "It never occurred to me that they
weren't all dead, and here they are, playing us into happiness!"

"And the Invincibles, or what's left of them, won't be far away," said
Dalton.

They walked on a little more briskly and beside them the vast length of
the unsuccessful army still trailed its slow way back into the South.
The sun was setting in uncommon magnificence, clothing everything in a
shower of gold, through which the lilting notes of the music came to
Harry and Dalton's ears. Presently the two saw them, the short, dark men
from far Louisiana, not so many as they had been, but playing with all
the fervor of old, putting their Latin souls into their music.

"And there are the Invincibles just ahead of them!" exclaimed Dalton.
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