relieved just long enough to secure their night-horses. Nearly
all of these two watches had been with me during the day, and on
the return of Levering with the horses, we borrowed a number of
empty flour-sacks for beef, and cantered away, leaving behind
only the cook and the first two guards.

What an evening and night that was! As we passed up the creek, we
sighted in the gathering twilight the camp-fires of Sponsilier
and my brother, several miles apart and south of the stream. When
we reached Forrest's wagon the clans were gathering, The Rebel
and his crowd being the last to come in from above. Groups of
saddle horses were tied among the trees, while around two fires
were circles of men broiling beef over live coals. The red-headed
cook had anticipated forty guests outside of his own outfit, and
was pouring coffee into tin cups and shying biscuit right and
left on request. The supper was a success, not on account of the
spread or our superior table manners, but we graced the occasion
with appetites which required the staples of life to satisfy.
Then we smoked, falling into groups when the yarning began. All
the fresh-beef stories of our lives, and they were legion, were
told, no one group paying any attention to another.

"Every time I run a-foul of fresh beef," said The Rebel, as he
settled back comfortably between the roots of a cottonwood, with
his back to its trunk, "it reminds me of the time I was a
prisoner among the Yankees. It was the last year of the war, and
I had got over my first desire to personally whip the whole
North. There were about five thousand of us held as prisoners of
war for eleven months on a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay. The
fighting spirit of the soldier was broken in the majority of us,