The rest of us reach the railway station shortly after daylight, are told off into platoons, and embarked on the train which the hissing engine announces to be waiting for us. Our comrades in this adventure are Captain Hoblitzel's company, the 'Swartz-Jaegers,' brawny mechanics, sturdy Teutons, and all of a size. These are Germans, remember, not what we call Hessians; not the kind that are destined to make Pennsylvania a byword; not the kind that advance in clogs but retreat in seven-league boots. We part from our German friends with a rousing cheer, as heartily returned, at a bridge which they are to guard. Then we have the cars to ourselves. Surely this is the _ne plus ultra_ of railway travelling; free tickets and a whole seat to yourself. We are to keep our rifles out of sight, unless an emergency arises. The funny men play conductor, announcing familiar stations in unintelligible roars, and singing out 'Tickets!' importunately. This is our first real danger. There is real excitement in this. We all hope there will be a fight; all except Smallweed, who remains melancholy, according to his wont, save when a sad pun breaks the surface into a temporary ripple of quiet smiles. And so, with wild jokes, mad capers, and loudly shouted songs, we whirl along, twenty miles an hour, over bridges, through cuts, above embankments, always through danger and into danger. Hoot, toot! shrieks the engine; the breaks are rasped down; the train slowly consumes its momentum in vainly trying to stop suddenly. Silence reigns. Every man nervously, as by instinct, grasps his rifle, half cocks it, looks to the cap, and thrusts his head out of the window. A shout: 'There they are!' 'Where?' Several of the more nervous rifle barrels protrude uncertainly from the windows. 'Steady men, _steady!_' from the clear voice of Captain Pipes. 'I see them.' 'There they are.' 'Three of them.' 'One of them has on gray clothes, and--' 'THE SEVENTH, by----!' rings in every ear. No matter who said it. '_The Seventh_,' every throat shouts. Then such a cheer, and such another, and such another after that, and such a tiger after that, and such other cheers and such other tigers!--until the train stops, and, regardless of orders, unheeding the vain protests of the captain or the curses of the lieutenants, or the objurgations of Sergeant Files, we rush madly, pellmell, from the cars. Everybody shakes hands with the Seventh man, and with everybody else. He is thirsty: sixty odd flasks are uncorked and jammed at him. Hungry, too? The men hustle him into the cars, and almost into the barrels of pork and bread, with which we came provided in quantities sufficient, as we thought in our simplicity, for a siege, though really, as I have since found reason to believe, amounting to less than a thousand rations.