Billy Archer, he who was to tell Shorty when he came where to find Snipe, had been sent home sick at the end of the first month, and only seven of the biggest and strongest remained to beat the old "six-eights" and "two-fours" when the regiment marched for Manassas. There had come a letter from Shorty to Billy Archer with an enclosure to Snipe, but Snipe and his regiment disappeared the night before, and Archer didn't know enough to have it forwarded. He thought they would meet again within a day or two, when, in point of fact, they did not meet at all. Shorty's old regiment was assigned to a brigade on the north side of the Potomac, and Snipe's new-comers were marched over the Long Bridge to the sacred soil of Virginia and brigaded with troops from three different States, and there, as the grave, big Captain Stark had said, the representative of the First Latin spent hours at his commander's tent, studying tactics and regulations and a little book called "Mahan's Outposts," when Stark wasn't using them, and twice it had happened that when the New England regiment was called upon to furnish the details for grand guard and picket, the tall, slender, brown-eyed boy in Company "C" was able to tell corporals and sergeants things about their duties they never had dreamed of. So, too, on battalion drill, Snipe, who used to hate such things, and even now bent under the weight of his long musket, had a more intelligent idea of the purpose of each formation and movement than most of the file-closers, some lieutenants not excepted. Before they had been a month in Virginia Captain Stark had taken a strong fancy to the youngster, and was seriously thinking of decorating his arms with chevrons when the order for the advance and Stark's promotion came together. The lieutenant-colonel, finding that his health could not stand the climate and exposure, had resigned and gone home, and just the very morning after the incident described in the last chapter a batch of new commissions reached the New-Englanders. Stark became major, vice Proctor, promoted lieutenant-colonel, and turned his company over to its new captain, the former first lieutenant. Stark's first act, after taking the oath and signing his acceptance, was to send for Lawton. The regiment, with much glee and excitement, was packing knapsacks for the move, and the lad came, pale and troubled. "Are you ill, Lawton?" demanded Major Stark. "No, sir. I just--got some bad news." "Folks ill?" "No, sir; it's something a sergeant in the Fire Zouaves told me." "You don't wish to go home, do you?" "I do, sir; but I won't. I'm going with the company."