Old Israel Putnam, a doughty, courageous veteran of the French and Indian campaigns, gaily agreed and rode away as if he were on a holiday. To fight was his business and if he found the enemy he would engage. Meanwhile, like a jolly old uncle he circulated among his soldiers quite as if he were at a town meeting. * * * * * Sergeant Abner Cotton led his detail back through the dark, answered the challenge of the sentry and trudged toward the general’s tent. There was no formality about speaking with Putnam. One private supposedly stood guard at the door but Putnam, hearing the sergeant’s voice, boomed out-- “Ne’mind that horseplay! Come in, sonny, come in!” Sergeant Cotton entered, saluted and stood straight. “What’s the story, sonny?” “I went as far as ordered, sir, and saw nothing. Another patrol passed me on the Jamaica road but the sergeant in charge said he’d found nothing suspicious either.” “All right, sonny. Guess you’ve done your night’s work. Meanwhile your company’s moved out to the hills, so you just fall in with the nearest outfit--that will prob’ly be the Maryland boys.” Cotton saluted and started to leave; Putnam held him with a gesture and looked at the young man’s face as if he were reading a book. There could be no mistaking the nativity of Abner Cotton. Yankee awkwardness and Yankee conscience were stamped plainly on his features. His nut-brown cheeks were almost cadaverous and a kind of parsimony of flesh was evident from head to foot; he was, in fact, bony and march-worn. When he moved, it needed no second glance to place him as one who had worked hard all his life and in consequence had learned to husband his efforts. The illusion was further sustained by a thin-lipped mouth that appeared to be keeping in attempted speech. All in all, it made the man seem a little grim, a trifle dour, a shade hard-bitten; as if living had been none too easy and as if there were nothing much to laugh about in a toilsome world. But the eyes told another story. They were veritable mirrors of the man’s conscience. “Sonny,” said Putnam, worrying a quill pen in his chubby fist, “your face does look f’miliar. What’s name?” “Cotton, sir.” The general’s face lighted with a rare, beaming smile. “Thought so. Know your Paw. Carried a fowling piece with him in Canada years ago. Good heart, good mind--Cotton’s, I mean.” He nodded. Sergeant Cotton retreated to his detail, dismissed them and made his way slowly to the foremost fires which danced fitfully and brilliantly behind the rough earthworks. One particular blaze seemed less crowded than the others and he advanced to it. Within ten yards a remark floated out to him: “There’s a ---- Yankee now, in a regular Yankee suit of clothes. Good ----, don’t they know how to dress?”