The corporal made no answer. Presently Dan said: "Billie, where you
been?"

His brother did not seem to hear these inquiries. He glanced at the
house which towered above them, and remarked casually to the man on the
horse-hair trunk: "Funny, ain't it? After the pelting this town got,
you'd think there wouldn't be one brick left on another."

"Oh," said Dan, glowering at his brother's back. "Getting mighty smart,
ain't you?"

The absence of camp-fires allowed the evening to make apparent its
quality of faint silver light in which the blue clothes of the throng
became black, and the faces became white expanses, void of expression.
There was considerable excitement a short distance from the group around
the doorstep. A soldier had chanced upon a hoop-skirt, and arrayed in it
he was performing a dance amid the applause of his companions. Billie
and a greater part of the men immediately poured over there to witness
the exhibition.

"What's the matter with Billie?" demanded Dan of the man upon the horse-
hair trunk.

"How do I know?" rejoined the other in mild resentment. He arose and
walked away. When he returned he said briefly, in a weather-wise tone,
that it would rain during the night.

Dan took a seat upon one end of the horse-hair trunk. He was facing the
crowd around the dancer, which in its hilarity swung this way and that