After visiting the videttes, I agreed to relieve my lieutenant at three in the morning, and then returned to the little store, unbuckled my buffalo, and was soon stretched with the men on the floor. It seemed as though I had been there but a few seconds, when I was roused by some one laying his hand on my shoulder and saying "Captain!" in a low voice. You wake quickly under such circumstances, and I was on my feet in an instant, demanding what was the matter. "Nothing; it's a quarter to three." "Indeed! that's a very soft floor." And I went out and remounted. The clouds were gone and the moon shone brilliant in the clear sky. At the tobacco-barn I found all quiet. The sentinel paced up and down in front, watching lest there should be an alarm from the videttes; and the men were stretched on some tobacco stalks within, sleeping as soundly without blankets as though on beds of down. It was time to relieve the videttes. "Call up the next relief." The sentinel goes in, shakes the next three, drops down himself, and in a minute is sound asleep. Of the three men who come out, one takes his place and the other two mount their horses. I had not personally relieved guard since at Camp Asboth last October, and was struck with the difference which practice and discipline had made. Then the men came out, one by one, half asleep, growling and yawning; now they were up at the first touch, wide awake, and apparently as willing as though called to breakfast. On the crest of a hill, about a mile up the road, the videttes were posted. Seated, silent and motionless, on their horses, in front of a house, they looked in the moonlight like equestrian statues placed at the gateway. "Have you seen or heard anything?" "No, sir." "Has everything been quiet in this house?" "Yes, sir." "Well, you are relieved, and may cross the bridge; there is a fire in the store, and it is quite comfortable." Sitting thus motionless for hours in the chill night air, when the white frost is settling like snow on field and road, is no pleasant duty, and the mention of the fire was an unexpected gleam of comfort to the men. As they hastened back, we rode slowly on, partly to see if the road was clear, partly that the new relief might the better understand the ground they had to watch; and then I returned to the barn, where, fastening my horse, I paced up and down, and resorted to the usual methods of keeping warm. I glanced at my watch; but half an hour had gone, and two and a half remained. Time passes very slowly under such circumstances. Relieving the videttes broke in upon the monotony. "The people are stirring in the house, they have just started a fire," was the report. "Don't let any of them go up the road on any pretext;" and I rode back to the barn. How surprised they will be, I thought, when they come out and find two "armed invaders" have been watching over them while they slept. When I next came my round, the man of the house had just come out. He merely