“Is this the reward of faith, I wonder?” said Dan, as he looked at a lame old negro who wheeled a cider cart and a tray of green apple pies down a red clay lane that branched off under thick locust trees. “This way, Uncle, here's your man.” The old negro slowly approached them to be instantly surrounded by the thirsty regiment. “Howdy, Marsters? howdy?” he began, pulling his grizzled hair. “Dese yer's right nice pies, dat dey is, suh.” “Look here, Uncle, weren't they made in the ark, now?” inquired Bland jestingly, as he bit into a greasy crust. “De ark? naw, suh; my Mehaley she des done bake 'em in de cabin over yonder.” He lifted his shrivelled hand and pointed, with a tremulous gesture, to a log hut showing among the distant trees. “What? are you a free man, Uncle?” “Free? Go 'way f'om yer! ain' you never hyearn tell er Marse Plunkett?” “Plunkett?” gravely repeated Bland, filling his canteen with cider. “Look here, stand back, boys, it's my turn now.--Plunkett--Plunkett--can I have a long-lost friend named Plunkett? Where is he, Uncle? has he gone to fight?” “Marse Plunkett? Naw, suh, he ain' fit nobody.” “Well, you tell him from me that he'd better enlist at once,” put in Jack Powell. “This isn't the time for skulkers, Uncle; he's on our side, isn't he?” The old negro shook his head, looking uneasily at the froth that dripped from the keg into the dust. “Naw, suh, Marse Plunkett, he's fur de Un'on, but he's pow'ful feared er de Yankees,” he returned. Bland broke into a laugh. “Oh, come, that's downright treason,” he protested merrily. “Your Marse Plunkett's a skulker sure enough, and you may tell him so with my compliments. You're on the Yankee side, too, I reckon, and there're bullets in these pies, sure as I live.” The old man shuffled nervously on his bare feet. “Go 'way, Marster, w'at I know 'bout 'sides'?” he replied, tilting his keg to drain the last few drops into the canteen of a thirsty soldier. “I'se on de Lawd's side, dat's whar I is.” He fell back startled, for the call of “Column, forward!” was shouted down the road, and in an instant the men had left the emptied cart, and were marching on into the sunny distance. As the afternoon lengthened the heat grew more oppressive. Straight ahead there was dust and sunshine and the ceaseless tramp, and on either side the fresh fields were scorched and whitened by a powdering of hot sand. Beyond the rise and dip of the hills, the mountains burned like blue flames on the horizon, and overhead the sky was hard as an inverted brazier. Dan had begun to limp, for his stiff boots galled his feet. His senses were blunted by the hot sand which filled his eyes and ears and nostrils, and there was a shimmer over all the broad landscape. When he shook his hair from his forehead, the dust floated slowly down and settled in a scorching ring about his neck.