needed."

But I was not needed; while I slept, who should come back and do my work
in my stead but Ned Ferry. When I awoke it was with a bound of alarm to
see clear day. The command was breaking camp. I rushed out of the tent
with canteen, soap and comb, and ran into the arms of the mess-cook. We
were alone. "Oh, yass, seh," he laughed as he poured the water into my
hands, "th'ee days' rairtion. Seh? Lawd! dey done drawed and cook' befo'
de fus' streak o' light. But you all right; here yo' habbersack, full
up. Oh, I done fed yo' hoss. Here yo' jacket an' cap; and here yo'
saddle an' bridle--Oh, you welcome; I dess tryin' to git shet of 'em
so's I kin strak de tent."

As I mounted, our wagonmaster rode by me, busy as a skipper in a storm.
"Oh, here!" he cried, wheeled, and reaching something to me added,
"that's your pass. Major Harper wants you as quick as you can show up.
He says never mind the column, ride straight after him. Keep this road
to Hazlehurst and then go down the main Brookhaven road till you
overtake him. He's by himself--nearly."

As the rider wheeled away I blurted out with anxious loudness in the
general hubbub, "Isn't his brother with him?"

He flashed back a glare of rebuke and then bellowed to heaven and earth,
"Oh, the devil and Tom Walker! I don't keep run of sutlers and
citizens!" He took a circuit, standing in his stirrups and calling
orders to his teamsters, and as he neared me again he said very gently,
"Good Lord! my boy, don't you know better than to shoot your mouth off
like that? You'll find nobody with the Major but Ned Ferry, and I don't
say you'll find him."