"This heah ain't no ordnance--not from Buford's neither! Put your backs into it now, yo' wagon-dogs! Git to it an' push!" Under that roar the excavation squad went into straining action. Oxen, their eyes bulbous in their skulls from effort, set brute energy against yokes along with the men. The mud eventually gave grip, and the wagon moved. Drew rode on, the two half-seen shapes which were Boyd and Kirby in his wake. A dripping branch flicked bits of ice into his face. The dusk was a thickening murk, and with the coming of the November dark, their already pitiful chance of locating the wagons dwindled fast. There was a distant crackle of carbine and rifle fire. The struggle must still be in progress back there. At least the stragglers about them were still moving up. No retreat from Spring Hill, unless the Yankees were making that. All Drew's party could do was to continue on down the road, asking their question at each wagon, stalled in the mud or traveling at a snail's pace. "D'you see?" Boyd cried out. "Those men were barefoot!" Involuntarily he swung one of his own booted feet out of the stirrup as if to assure himself that he still had adequate covering for his cold toes. "It ain't the first time in this heah war," Kirby remarked. "They'll ketch 'em a Yankee. The blue bellies, they're mighty obligin' 'bout wearin' good shoes an' such, an' lettin' themselves be roped with all their plunder on. Some o' 'em, who I had the pleasure of surveyin' through Sarge's glasses this mornin', have overcoats--good warm ones. Now that's what'd pleasure a poor cold Texas boy, makin' him forgit his troubles. You keep your eyes sighted for one of them theah overcoats, Boyd. I'll be right beholden to you for it." Hannibal brayed again and switched his rope tail. His usual stolid temperament showed signs of wear. "Airin' th' lungs that way sounds like a critter gittin' set to make war medicine. A hardtail don't need no hardware but his hoofs to make a man regret knowin' him familiar-like--" Drew had reached another wagon. "Ordnance? Buford's?" He repeated the well-worn question without hope. "Yeah, what about it?" For a moment the scout thought he had not heard that right. But Kirby's crow of delight assured him that he had been answered in the affirmative. "What about it?" Boyd echoed indignantly. "We've been huntin' you for hours. General Buford wants...." The man who had answered Drew was vague in the dusk, to be seen only in the limited light of the lantern on the driver's seat. But they did not miss the pugnacious set of knuckles on hips, nor the truculence which overrode the weariness in his voice.